


April

by nextraordinaire



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canada, Alternate Universe - Scientists, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, Internal Conflict, Internalized Homophobia, Isolation, M/M, Moira the Seal Scientist, Seals (Animals), Slow Build, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-09-09
Packaged: 2018-04-10 08:34:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 56,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4384865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nextraordinaire/pseuds/nextraordinaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the sharp, unforgiving plains of the Canadian Arctic, Erik is since long adapted to solitude and silence. Separated from civilization, dedicated to nothing but his research, he has formed a life that suits him. There is nothing he would ever want to change. So, naturally, the arrival of grad student Charles Xavier upends everything Erik ever thought he wanted, for better or for worse.</p><p>Chinese <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/5669869/">translation</a> now available!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. -25° Celsius

**Author's Note:**

> This fic I've hammered away on for about six months or so. All the love to the gorgeous Black_Betty (black--betty) for being the most enthusiastic beta there has ever been, and to the lovely _lovely_ traumschwinge (traumschwinge), for standing by with her endless wisdom, encouragement and writer-ly Heimlich maneuvers more than once. Without the both of you, this story would not exist.
> 
> Addtional thanks to Enoo, for enduring my invasive questions about everyday life in the Arctic.
> 
> Note: All temperatures will be written in Celsius, because fic is set in Canada, author is a Swede and Fahrenheit hurts my eyes

_"Follow me; I seek the everlasting ices of the north, where you will feel the misery of cold and frost, to which I am impassive."_

* * *

 

The coffee was as always the first thing to run out.

With a subdued snitch, Erik closed the pantry door and put the coffee tin down on the counter. Tight with cold, fingers useless, he popped the latch open with a flick of his wrist, revealing the very last beans stuck in the corners of the tin. Opening it usually brought out a rich whiff of coffee, but now, in the chilled air it was faint, almost nonexistent. But as he ground all of the beans up, the smell strengthened, filling his nose when he dropped the grounds in the filter covering the inside of the tin mug.

Just enough for two heaped tablespoons – and just enough to make one last cup, as predicted.

Morning was still early enough for the darkness to lay in heavy drapes over the snowbanks, pressing them down.  A deep pink glow at the edge of the horizon spoke about the sun’s imminent arrival. Shyly dusted with dwindling stars, the dark sky was a stark reminder that in a month, they would have to do with a permanent dusk and in another, when polar night set in, the stars would be the only saviour in the void.

Erik twisted the filter closed and spun it around the mug’s handle. With a faded ring of discolouration in the bottom from excessive use, the mug and its twin were two of the few possessions he’d first brought with him out here. Them, the chess set and the clothes on his back. He’d gotten by until the provision plane arrived, and for some time after that too. It had been enough, which he treasured, but as time wore on, he’d shipped over the old armchair, the small bookcase, and then, more out of practicality than anything else, the slightly firmer mattress to place in his bunk.

It hadn’t been necessary – after all, not much was – but his back had improved since then. Out here, only the bare necessities were needed, yet survival was only possible as long as you were prepared. With eight miles to the nearest town, there was no one call for help. Not even for emergencies.

A CFL currently cast a soft glow over the kitchen, lengthening the shadows of the table’s legs all the way to the battered bookcase. Filled to the brim, it was all he had to depend upon apart from his own knowledge. Top shelves mostly held references: an atlas of clouds, geomagnetism references, books on snow and wind conditions, historical sightings, general literature on the Arctic and how to fight polar bears. The bottom shelves stocked a selected few books of fiction for boredom curation, mostly thumbed paperback copies of old classics from second-hand bookstores.

On the stove, the kettle suddenly let out a shriek, steam streaming from its spout. With practiced  movements, Erik lifted it off the hotplate and poured the simmering water into the mug, waiting as it steeped. Thin, fragile wisps of steam rose from the drink, curling lazily in the sharpening light as the coffee slowly turned a from a deep brown to black. He poured in the last of the month’s evaporated milk, the white marbling with the dark liquid.

Edie would have told him what a waste it was to ruin perfectly good coffee, but Erik needed the extra calories to keep warm. At least that was what he told himself.

He curled his palm around the mug and drank, not bothering when it nearly burned his tongue. The counter was a chill against his back, while the heat gripped at the inside of his throat  as he looked out through the window again. Attached to the window frame, the thermometer had stalled at -25 degrees Celsius. Rather warm for the season, and no need for the visor today. It certainly had its advantages, but it also had a tendency to fog up his vision.

Lukewarm, Erik emptied the last dregs of the coffee-milk mixture in the sink. Narrow but deep, it made the dark color slosh up the sides before swirling down the drain. A few corns of grounds still stuck to drain filter and he brushed them down before they dried up and got stuck. Opening the tap, he also splashed a bit of water around in the mug before putting it upside down on the drying rack.

As he dried his hands on the towel by his hip, he heard the generator on the east side of the station emit a clunking noise; indicating that if he wanted hot water tonight, he would have to take a look at it before he trekked out to the measuring booth.

By now, the kitchen was now almost fully illuminated by sun, and so, there was no need to dwell any longer.The closet beside the door stored two sets of extreme temperature clothing gifted from the university, as well as boots and other articles that were essential for survival. Apart from the boots, however, Erik forewent all the stupidly expensive gear. There was a reason people had survived up here for far longer than the new, exciting materials had been invented. A t-shirt and two woolen sweaters over his thermal set preserved body heat  well enough and his seal skin anorak kept the rest of the cold out better than anything else could.

Taking the binoculars off the wall, and making sure there were no gaps in the muffler, he slung the bear rifle onto his back and slammed the door shut behind him.

Just as most mornings, no matter how long he’d stayed out here, the cold came like a shock. From the relative warmth inside, the sensation of Arctic air was not unlike slamming into a wall of frigidity, uncompromising and violating as it shoved its way into your lungs.

Used to the burning cold as he was, Erik didn’t hold in the coughs and his shocked organs adapted after just a breath.  

Due east, the sun was steadily rising, setting the widespread whiteness aglow. Even after so long, the silent beauty of the plains was mesmerizing, accompanied only by the thin rasp of his own breathing. Rushes of blood occasionally filtered through the foreground, only to sink away to nothingness once again, leaving the soundscape a clean, empty slate.

Passing around the station’s east side, Erik spooled his powers out to open the generator’s door. He hadn’t detected anything wrong with the mechanism from inside, which usually meant snow from the roof had made its way into the gears.

Without pulling off his mittens, Erik peered into the machine.  Whirring away, there was just a dusting of snow from the storm two days ago clinging on top of the heat processor. Sighing, Erik reached for the rag always residing in the anorak’s front pocket, wiped the snow away, and checked the surrounding metal for further damage. When none was found, he slammed the door shut and set off along the well worn path leading south west.

Back when Erik had first arrived to the station, he’d thought the pressing emptiness was nothing but silence. Compared to the hurry and flashes of the cities, it was the only sensible answer. The definition of sound were vibrations travelling through air or water; silence the absence of them. Here, though, between the rumbles and the ultrasound of melting ice, the soundscape was so vast, the gap was filled up with something else; an energy, charging  in currents through the ground, the atmosphere and seeping into anything it passed.

The Inuit claimed evil spirits resided in the ice, and unless you had someone else’s heartbeat to lead the way, they would possess you. According to legends, only shamans had the resilience to phase through them alone, and even then they needed to know their own heart thorough and well to come back unscathed.

It was so easily written off as warnings against cabin fever, but the longer he’d stayed, however, the more Erik had realized it was not without a grain of truth. While the currents certainly were linked to the magnetic north, isolation – an existence with your thoughts as the only company – could make you see and hear things simply to fill the void.

He’d experienced it when the rumble of the snowmobile engine had died down, leaving nothing but his own breaths and the silence. Nothing malicious or supernatural, but a slight shift in his cognition. He hadn’t recognized it at first, but as speechless days wore on, he felt how his perception of time steadily changed; the feeling in his chest translated into relief that settled to rest.

He took a deep breath, the cold latching onto the inside of his nose. Heavy, still and all-encompassing solitude he hadn’t regretted since.

Because of the expanses of flatness, Erik spotted the measuring booth just after five minutes walk. No bigger than a phone box, seven feet above the ground, the old-fashioned thing did keep the equipment dry and shielded even through the harshest conditions. Though it took him another fifteen minutes to come close enough to step onto the ladder and open the hatch.

Clicking the light on, the different scales and gauges stared back at him, relatively unchanged. Erik fished his notebook out of his backpack and floated the mechanical pen out as well. In the prepared tables, he then filled in the measures from the three thermometers, the hygrometer and the continuous meter to paint a three-dimensional picture of the conditions of day and night.

The change was barely noticeable from yesterday, as it was most days. The monotonous rhythm was a part of why he’d been drawn to this in the first place. The small changes, the glacial progress and slow movement of everything, wasn’t the same as nothing. All the miniscule day-to-day changes would, ultimately, end up in the report that would have the leaders of the world scream in fear for the irrefutable proof global warming was actually happening.

That the same ice was melting right under his arse was another bullet on the board. But he’d rather die than leave it.

What couldn’t be seen, didn’t exist, after all.

With the data collected, Erik stepped down from the ladder and set off towards the edge of the ice. The weather station’s foundation was set on the permafrost, quite close to the natural coast. This far above the polar circle the pack ice could stretch out for miles. During winter, the ice spread so far, it was what made it possible for explorers to ski all the way from Russia to Canada without having to swim even once.

He had been walking for maybe ten minutes, when there was a slight shift underfoot. Usually a few days after a snowstorm, walking through the pristine snow was just as satisfactory as cutting into butter. Untouched, it forced you to lift your knees high, but now, something else had been there before him, cutting a path.

Looking down, Erik stopped. Something had been here before him. The deep tracks were caused by something heavy and –

Instinctively, he felt out the pipe of the rifle, binoculars up without him even registering it. His breath spread in the air as he waited, eyes flicking over the snow. The southern hills were still, their whiteness contrasting sharply against the clear sky. It provided a spotless view for miles, and when nothing but the wind made any motion, he let the binoculars slowly fall.

Faded tracks or not, polar bears were to be respected and feared. Despite their size, they moved fast and stealthy; they weren’t apex predators for nothing. Intellectually, Erik knew the chance of getting mauled was small, bordering on miniscule if you kept your head up. But the mere physical possibility made him feel peeled and alert in an odd mix of exhilaration and vulnerability.

Forcing himself to relax, he let out a tightly held breath and marched on towards the open water. With the dropping temperatures of winter, the ice had started to pack further and further, adding to the distance to the water where the measuring buoys bobbed leisurely on the waves. He thankfully only needed to tend to them once a month, but it was pleasing to see they hadn’t decided to stray further away from the shore, pushed out by the ice as they were designed to do.

Shouldering off his backpack, Erik pulled out the foldable measuring stick and dropped it into the water until it hit the shoal. Waves made the measuring difficult, and so he had to kneel in an awkward position to get a good reading. Back cramping and jotting down the numbers, he was occupied enough he didn’t sense the mass of rushing hemoglobin under the ice. Not until a splash of water to his right caught his attention.

Two feet away, something familiar had surfaced, its smooth head bobbing just above the water level.  Against his will, Erik felt himself smiling. He’d heard all of Moira’s stories about increasingly ridiculous seal chases over the years, and there was an irony to the fact that while she struggled to get close over on the western shore, the seals had made themselves a home along the opposite one. The reason as to why was still a mystery, but Erik didn’t mind them and their yapping – as long as they didn’t disturb his work.

On the other hand, though, it was rather nice to have something so innocently curious observe you.

At times, especially when the darkness seeped into his lungs, or the restlessness started to prickle under his skin, he’d thought about calling Moira and tell her about their migration. She had used them as indicators for years, tenaciously following and tracking another small pod heading south. Though, it was clear that she was frustrated with their tiny number and that she’d lost the cow she’d wanted to track.

It’d just be a simple call. He had contemplated it before, especially after that week nearly seven years back. But in more clear-headed moments, he remembered his reasons and how all the others too, with their equipment and boats, inevitably would stay at the station with him –  

He always came to the conclusion not to.

The seal, having swimmed closer, yapped in approval. Erik grinned, letting the dark eyes study him.

“You want to be left alone too, I gather,” he said, his voice loud against the waves.

At that, the seal dipped its nose below the water, only the dark eyes visible. It kept still for almost a minute before resurfacing – and snorted out a loud spray of freezing water, sharp enough to almost hit him in the face.

“Hey, watch it!” Erik swatted half-heartedly in its direction, but the seal just yapped. Shaking his head, Erik jotted down the measurements in the notebook, but he kept an eye on the seal. It stayed still when he was, peering up at him, nostrils flaring loudly as it breathed. Butas soon as he moved to stand, its head peeked up, and with graceful move, it rolled over, showing its white belly before it disappeared down into the cold, dark depth once again.

Erik rose, looking after it until the water had stilled, apart from the waves. Putting away the measuring stick, he shouldered his backpack and began walking back to the station. The worn path from his years of taking the same route was slightly filled over with snow after yesterday, but it wasn’t like he really needed them.

He’d found his way home in his sleep, his very body pulling him north.

Back at the station, he dumped his backpack inside the door before heading out to the garage. Not more than a few sheets of metal insulated by stacks of chopped wood, it did do its job. He took last month’s loading crate and lashed it down on the back of the snowmobile. Working the straps was tricky with the mittens on, but thanks to the metal in the flat hooks, he made quick work of it. Lack of distractions had made it easier to hone his powers, and though some of it might be due to the proximity to the magnetic north, it was also a freedom in being able to use it however he pleased, instead of being limited to muscles, nerves and bones when they were all so treacherous in the end.

Finished, he filled his arms with two days worth of wood and headed inside to get away from the numbing cold. Cleansing as it was, he’d never been foolish enough to get a hypothermia or frostbite, and so it should remain.

Door closed, he got a fire going in the stove, its heat gently warming up the the still chill station. It wasn’t big, but starting the fire was a slow process that needed time and air before the heat had gotten deep enough into the wood to burn on its own. Sunset was scheduled at three o’clock nowadays, and although Erik lived after a eat when hungry, sleep when tired sort of deal, he made a point to make the most of his time.

Besides, the Arctic wasn’t amiable to those not in a decent physical condition.

So, while watching the fire eat at the cold wood, he did his usual routine. Nothing spectacular at all: a simple workout to warm his muscles and keep up strength, he did the most out of it and steadily kept going until sweat dripped into his eyes and he couldn’t do another push-up without spitting blood.

Heart rushing, he rolled over onto his back, staring up into the ceiling while his pulse went back to normal. Sweat made the ribbed vest stick to his back and the damp fabric quickly cooled against the cold floor. Above him, the crossbeams made perfect squares to follow with your eyes. Old as they were, they had and would withstand anything – from blizzards to the weight of melting snow or  even a polar bear on the roof.

Beams you could trust enough to close your eyes at night, without the nagging feeling that you’d be killed in your sleep.

Erik carefully rolled over again and checked on the fire once more. It was snapping merrily, the wood charred, so he shut the stove door and dragged himself over to the old radio in the corner. Clunky and dated, it was as old as the station itself, but it worked and kept the electrical buzz to minimum. As he turned it on, crackling started up and turned into sticky, but tolerable, white noise. Laying out his notebook on the table, Erik then tuned in the only channel he’d ever bothered to learn by heart and waited.

He knocked out a couple of cigarettes from the pack residing on top of the radio. Nasty habit, one born out of rebellion. It was, however, one he’d harbored for so long, he didn’t have the inclination nor energy to quit. Conjuring up a spark between his fingertips, he lit it and dragged the smoke deep into his lungs, letting it out through his nose in two thin tendrils. The den was heating up slowly and around him the house settled to rest  with a sigh, acknowledging that the day’s work was done.

The radio crackled, redirecting his attention as a voice carried through the static.

“ _Alpha Lima 0-742_ , established. Calling _Victor Yankee 0-3670_. Repeat, _Alpha Lima 0-742_ calling _Victor Yankee 0-3670_. ”

Balancing his cigarette on the edge of the ashtray, Erik put on his headset. “ _Victor Yankee 0-3670_ , established.”

“ _Alpha Lima 0-742_ , _Victor Yankee 0-3670_ , connection established.”

There was another moment of crackling before the voice came through again, clearer this time. “Lehnsherr. Glad to hear from you.”

Erik picked up his cigarette again. “Same to you, Pryde,” he said, his voice more hoarse from disuse than he’d intended. He cleared his throat and took another drag of his cigarette.

“How nice,” she said, as she shuffled with something from her side. “You’re delayed, so let me guess: ice messing with the antenna?”

“No, just a blizzard,” Erik said honestly, tapping his pen against his note book. “It wouldn’t let me pass through. Minus one point, Pryde.”

“Right, right. Tell me about it. We had one tear through here as well”, she said, sighing. “Houston wasn’t happy with me, being three days late and all.”

From what he’d heard of her superiors before, Erik snorted. Like she had any more control over the conditions than them.  “I gather not. So, already night in Barrow?”

“Absolutely pitch black. You know, I watched 30 Days of Night before moving here, so I thought I was prepared for this.”

Erik had no interest in pop culture, but some things were hard to miss when you planned to move above the polar circle. “Worrying about vampires?” he said, grinning.

“Certainly not,” she said, laughing. “I’m no more for superstition than you, you know that.”

Raising his eyebrows, Erik breathed out a laugh as well. “What do you know, Pryde?” he said, dragging some smoke into his mouth.

“You’re a meteorology researcher and from what I know, superstition and science don’t go together. Unless you want to prove a hypothesis wrong.” Her voice tilted, smile audible through the ether.  “That’s what you’ve told me, anyways. And to avoid them ripping my ears off, your data please?”

“Right.” Flipping a few pages in his book, Erik rattled of all of his reports on temperature, wind speed and snowfall, Kitty humming in affirmation now and again. “That’s all I’ve got for now.”

Kitty hummed one last time, her papers shuffling again. “Right. Hear from you in a week, then?”

“Unless you don’t,” Erik reminded her.

“Unless I don’t.” He could hear the small smile on her lips, barely more than a twitch. “Til next time, Lehnsherr. Take care.”

“Take care, Pryde.”

A bit of crackling, and then: “ _Alpha Lima 0-742_ , disconnecting.”

“ _Victor Yankee 0-3670_ , disconnecting.”

He pulled off the headset and hung it on the hook attached to the wall. They swayed gently with the motion and he picked up his cigarette to finish it off.

The only thing he knew about Kitty, besides her name, was that she was originally from Deerfield, Illinois, but by some turn of events had ended up stationed in Barrow, Alaska to gather data from outposts like Erik’s. And as much as he appreciated the solitude, her voice was probably one of the things that helped keep him relatively sane, despite the fact that the conversations were short and quite barren. They’d gotten longer over the past year, evolved from him muttering numbers to her, to something that he actually made him look forward to the Wednesdays when he rattled of his data as usual.

She was a tolerant girl, after all.

With his cigarette burned down, Erik rose from the chair and headed for the bathroom. It was a cramped space just off the side of the den, with a small shower cabin, a metal sink with sharp edges and toilet smashed together for maximum space utilization.

Peeling off his sticky vest and long johns, he stepped in under the weak spray. Warmth of any kind was hard earned, so he washed quickly and only used as much water as absolutely necessary. At the annual conference in New York, they often mocked him about it being just in time for the yearly hermit’s shower.

Erik didn’t bother correcting them, but for the same reasons as he shaved, he made sure to wash every other day. There was no need to turn into a feral slob simply because you could.

Water trickled in rivulets down his back, washing away the sweat from his body. Despite the weak spray, the water was hot enough to heat him up, making his blood pulse closer to the surface, more alive. A few droplets dripped into his mouth, and he spit it out before it slinked down his throat. He stood under the weak spray until the water heated up, but when the cold had finally separated from his bones, Erik turned off the water, the bathroom heated with steam. He wasn’t hot per se, but his pulse had gone up and with the exercise still lingering in his muscles, he was warm enough.

Closing his eyes, arm braced on the tiled wall, he slicked his hand with soap, took his cock in hand and started stroking himself into hardness.

It wasn’t gentle; there wasn’t time nor need for that. He closed his eyes, fingering lightly at the circumcision scar until a warmth bloomed from the base of his spine. Sufficiently hard, he changed his grip and set a quick pace, the beads of water already cooling on his skin. Perfunctory and without any heed for slow pleasure, he concentrated on the tingling under his skin and conjured up the images necessary. Graphic, honed and perfected after years of use, they were the only thing he had. He’d made sure of that – efficiency was priority after all. A mixture of words and pictures he’d seen, images from memories that he’d realized too late what they were implying. As always, they made the tingling remain, hold a steady pace. But it didn’t spread or kindle as it should, instead frustratingly stalled at a tipping point at which his body refused to push beyond.

Erik bit off a frustrated moan and rearranged his grip. There was the option to just stop, leave it for the day after tomorrow and force himself through it then intead. He had done it in the past, though it left him tight and irritated and didn’t follow schedule. Biting his lip, he tipped his head forward, focusing on the memories instead of the text as his fingers went tight against the wall. Focused on those parts he’d tried, but once again failed, to filter out.

He sped up, hand working to build up the tension again, let the electrical buzz rekindle. His head pounded with blood as he concentrated on the feeling of his slick grip. His chest heaved, the pace rapid and violent, the light constriction in his balls wound even tighter, spreading outwards to tighten his core until it shook and rumbled with straining tension all the way down his legs while the images started to flicker, throbbing in time with his racing pulse even as he shook his head, face blazing when tension suddenly, and without mercy, snapped.

With a grunt, fire scorching up his shuddering legs and spine, he came. Like a whiplash coursing through his body, he bit off a keening noise and jerked against the tile in three heavy spurts that left him panting, breaths loud and ragged in the humid air, echoing in the small room and making it seem even more claustrophobic than before.

Unconsciously, he clenched his fist, slamming it once against the tainted wall; the force making the shower cabin shake.

He jerkily washed down and stepped out of the shower, towel around his hips. The closed door had kept most of the warmth inside the bathroom, but the transition to dry, colder air still made goosebumps pop up on his skin. Wool trousers, a sweater and thick socks kept the insistent cold from getting to his skin, even as drops from his hair ran down his spine, making him shiver.

That, at least, kept his thoughts alert and focused.

Covered again, he deterred to his cramping stomach. Most of the food came in tins and cans, especially in winter, but from time to time, when he got fed up with it all, Erik indulged and bought fish or caribou meat from the Inuits. He’d passed by them in the beginning of the month, and so, still had some arctic char left which was easy enough to cut up with some root vegetables, wrap the whole thing in tin foil and stick in the oven. It was one of the first things Edie had thought him, wholly due to its simplicity.

After eating and washing up, he then transferred into the den, and  he jotted down the same numbers he’d given Kitty in one of his larger notebooks before he started to analyzing the small changes. There wasn’t much to go on, and to an untrained eye, it was definitely hard to miss the signs of an incoming low pressure. But it was those small changes that made for the difference of getting stuck in a blizzard or simply watching it from the safety of your home.

He worked in silence, the comparing of the last days of data cleaning his head with its mundanity, and not before long he had an as accurate forecast for the three following days as he could manage. By the time he’d finished, the little sun he still got had since long disappeared beneath the horizon and so, he started to turn in for the night.

Sleep was just as dynamic as anything else and didn’t follow the usual patterns. In summer, when the sun didn’t even dip below the horizon, his sleeping hours averaged around four. With winter approaching, and the heaviness of it seeped in everywhere, it was no idea to fight it. Stacking the notebooks neatly on the desk, he checked on the fire one last time, before he retreated to the bedroom. Stripping down to his thermal set, he slipped under the many covers and them pulled up around him before he plunged the station into complete darkness.

Curling a hand around the brass frame, he stared into the crossbeams of the ceiling, clenching his jaw, thoughts rushing, crashing and piling like wrecks in his mind.  The days, filled with routine, held them at bay, but at night, they still gnawed at him, nipping at his heels.

Always the same ones.

He’d let go of everything else – shrugged off all that wouldn’t help to keep him warm and alive. He’d peeled off the layers, left only his own nuclear core, his pulsing heart to power him through this vacuum of an existence, like a spaceman on a neverending mission. Because he wasn’t lacking in space now, in all definitions. There was space, room and silence in abundance, and so there was no need for ludicrous emotions, least of all fear, here.

All ghosts were fabrications of his mind, illusions holding no empiric truth.

He emptied his lungs, and in the wake a shiver raced up his spine. Ignoring the ghost of the old twinge in his back, Erik then turned on his side, back facing the wall as he eased his breathing into something slower, collected, the room cut in two by the moonlight.

Because what couldn’t be seen, simply wasn’t true, after all.

 

* * *

 

Next morning, the wind had picked up. Winter was rapidly approaching, and the almost snowless winds were one of the more definite signs darkness and storms were not far behind. Now, only small grains of snow whipped with the winds, thankfully not adding to the already heavy layer of snow on the ground.  If all else, the quiet tension in the air kept them all on their toes.

Erik tightened his scarf just as Marie’s boots clamped down the ramp, a crate of goods in her arms.

“Here you go,” she said and handed it over to him. It was heavy, and he had to adjust his grip to get a good look at what was inside. “There’s the usual, though coffee was low in stock. You’ve gotta make do with half the beans this month.”

Erik frowned. “Half a pound?” .

“There was something wrong with the delivery. Didn’t know until I got it, so out of my hands,” Marie said, shrugging. “I put in ‘em extra eggs for you to fill the bill, so ain’t ripping you off.”

Erik put the crate down on the back of the snowmobile. “Fair enough,” he said, taking out the flat hook straps he kept under the seat for these trips. “Put up an extra pound on the list for the next batch.”

Marie nodded, pulling her agenda out to jot down a quick note. “Done. Two pounds of coffee for the next batch, as well as double CFLs and batteries then, rest is the same. You got two dollars for the coffee, then?”

Erik stopped and patted his anorak’s pocket, finding a few wrinkled bills next to his keys.

“Thank you,” Marie sing-songed, plucked them from his hand and stashed the bills in her cash box, perched precariously on a stack of empty crates. “Gotta need someone over to help you drink it all, though. Coffee don’t do well frozen, y’know.”

Erik shrugged. Only Moira had stayed more than one night at the station in the decade he’d lived there, and so it should remain. Stale beans were something he’d gladly live with.  “I’ll manage.”

He secured the straps, making sure the eggs didn’t have room to move around. They were a luxury he didn’t bother to spend on; not worth the space they occupied in the little fridge nor the preparation they needed to be stacked in the freeze box. Nonetheless, while Erik would’ve chosen an extra pack of cigarettes as a substitute, they were a good enough compensation for the lost coffee.

Behind him, Marie continued to unload the rest of the residents’ crates, stacking them up in a neat pile. The morning was still rosy fresh, the sun struggling over the horizon and the roaring silence only broken by boots against metal and the light clucking of waves. Erik had been early to the pick-up, avoiding interaction the best he could manage. Marie was easy-going enough, but he always made sure to be out of sight before the other residents of the village started to show up, chatting, gossiping and loud.

As he finished up, two silhouettes appeared on the top of the short slope leading down to the wharf. A bundled up Moira, whose whipcord body was still visible beneath the layers, and a non-descriptive blue lump that had to be Hank McCoy: her grad student who’d always been such a wuss about the cold Erik was shocked he hadn’t jumped right back on the plane when he’d arrived six months ago.

“Good morning,” Moira said, her voice muffled from inside her scarf. McCoy only managed a stiff wave from inside his cocoon.

“Morning.” Erik tested the straps’ resistance with a last shake. Some of the preserves rattled, but it kept still – a good enough sign they wouldn’t tumble off.

As McCoy turned to speak to Marie about the payment, Moira turned his way. They’d arrived with the same plane way back then – Erik sullen, Moira bright-eyed, rawboned but not naïve –  and just as him she’d worked alone for many years before the grads had started to trickle in.

Now, she kept out of his space, and through the tiny slit between scarf and hat, dark, alert eyes peered out at him. “Why aren’t you picking up your damn phone?”

Unhooking  the helmet from the steering handle, Erik looked over his shoulder. “What do you want?”

“What I want is to take the boats out to the rocks tomorrow,” she said, voice muffled from all the fabric in front over her mouth, “but I can’t do it if I know a blizzard is moving in.”

Erik raised his eyebrows at her. “Sneaking free forecasts, again, MacTaggert?”

Both of them were supplied with forecasts from the NOAA over a five-day period, but considering the environment they were currently in, those were often faulty and delayed. So not long after Erik had started his research, he’d started doing his private forecasts as well. They were often more accurate, and the only reason he’d agreed to install the big, plastic telephone currently attached to his kitchen wall.

“I trust you, not them. Besides, you tailor to my needs,” she replied, tilting her head. “So?”

Not questioning her logic, Erik pulled the helmet over his head. “Not yet,” he answered, yesterday’s readings still fresh in his mind. “Blizzard will roll in tomorrow night or day after tomorrow. Get back before nightfall and you and your seals are fine.”

Moira nodded and took one of her crates when Marie tapped her on the shoulder. “Good,” she said, immediately passing the crate over to McCoy, who grunted as it was shoved into his hands.

Taking his goggles from the handle as well, Erik once again made sure there were no gaps in his clothing. “Anything else?”

“No. Otherwise, I’ll ring you up.” She gave Erik a look and a half-smile as he slid down the goggles and straddled the snowmobile. “And you better answer, Lehnsherr. You go cranky when you’ve only had yourself to talk to.”

“Sure.” He lifted his foot to rev the engine, ready to let the old thing rumble to life, when someone gasped.

“Oh shit – no, Lehnsherr, wait!”

Startled, Erik stopped, catching a flash of a green bomber jacket as Marie clanked back into the plane, only to quickly return with two envelopes in her hands.

“Only Moira get them fancy dancy mails anymore, I almost forgot,” she said, sticking one out to each of them.

Moira took hers immediately, but Erik stalled, trepidation building in his throat. Hands numb with nothing to do with the cold, he clenched his jaw and took it, an unease he hadn’t had reason to recognize in years creeping up his spine. Thick, coarse paper with an old-fashioned blue wax seal and an inky sigill in the top left corner.

They’d gotten the address right; his name was typewritten and misspelled.

“It’s that time of year again. Hank, we might get a grad,” Moira said, the corners of her eyes crinkling as she turned to Erik, eyebrows disappearing up under her hat. “I thought you’d sworn them off.”

“I have,” Erik told her.

He had spent eleven years conducting his research in blessed solitude. Moira always had one or two grads staying with her, to help track down her ringed seals for one reason or another, but after he’d sent the first frostbitten, cabin feverish wreck home, Erik had composed a curt letter informing the administration he wasn’t and never would accept any grad students again.

He hadn’t received a reply, but at least no more unprepared, whiny idiots had shown up.

With jerky movements, he stuffed the letter inside his anorak and straddled the snowmobile again.

“Watch out for polar bears!” Marie shouted as he turned east. Moira nudged McCoy’s side, making him wave before she sent him her trademark two-fingered salute. Erik returned it, revved the engine again, and headed back home, over the snow banks and into the neverending whiteness.

The trip back took almost an hour and by the time he was back at the station, the temperature had risen a few notches even without the sun. Disposing the crate just inside the door, he trekked out to the booth, the frustration a crystallic sharpness in his veins. He even went down to the shore and waded out to the shallow buoys, the mundanity of the task and cold of the water seeping in through the thin gumboots soothing. A light snowfall had chased the seals back into the water, but just when he was returning to shore, measuring stick under his arm, a splash to his left made him turn to see three smooth heads bobbing in the water for a moment before they dove back down with a splash.

Back at the station, and with his outwear tucked away in the wardrobe, he sat down at the kitchen table, letter in front of him. Without mittens or gloves, the paper felt even thicker under his fingers.

He turned it over in his hands, felt the weight of it.

It looked exactly like the letter he’d received eight years ago. To avoid more unpleasant surprises, he quickly ripped the seal open and unfolded out the letter. At the top, the university logo and the date, from three weeks ago.

 

 

> _Dear Dr. Lehnsherr,_
> 
> _We write to inform you that Mr. Charles F. Xavier has placed a request for accommodation at one of our facilities on Broughton Island. Due to lack of resident competence in the field of studies (bio-optical oceanography), lack of accommodation at the Qikiqtarjuaq Marine Biology Facility and taking into account the nature of Mr. Xavier’s research, the faculty has, after careful consideration, granted Mr. Xavier to reside at Broughton Island Weather Station without further consultation with Dr. Lehnsherr._
> 
> _Mr. Xavier is expected to arrive to Qikiqtarjuaq with the January provision plane next year. Dr. Lehnsherr is expected to provide Mr. Xavier with transport to and from the airstrip to the accommodation at the Broughton Island Weather Station for a period of two months._
> 
> _We apologize for the inconvenience._
> 
> _Yours sincerely,_
> 
> _Dr. Emma Grace Frost,_   
>  _Head of Polar Studies,_   
>  _Columbia University, New York,_   
>  _United States of America_

 

The words on the page were written in ink.

Hands shaking, anger prickling his skin, boiling just beneath the surface, Erik pushed back from the table so violently he toppled over his chair and it slammed into the floorboards with a crash.

He had always known they didn’t respect him, his work, or his choices. When he’d announced he’d gladly live out here with next to no contact with the outer world, he’d been met with a disdain and a pity he never wanted to experience again. Like it was a sacrifice. It was always assumed that you needed other people to be happy, but solitude had brought Erik a peace he’d never been able to find with the constant reminders of how bigoted and disgusting humanity could be.

At first, he’d tried to fight back, but eventually, when it became so bad he couldn’t take it, all energy had left him and he’d decided he simply wouldn’t stand for it anymore. Pulling away from the world, he’d disappeared into elements and cold and tundra to finally find freedom away from any restrictions other than his own.

Now, that freedom was crumbling too. All because of a brat who couldn’t find anything better to do with his time.

Vision tinted red and tasting of copper, Erik stalked over to the kitchen counter and vehemently crushed the letter in his hand before shoving it deep in the bin, under wet coffee grounds and fishbones.

Deep into the garbage, right where it belonged.


	2. -52° to -38° Celsius

_“Satan has his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and detested.”_

* * *

 

“She’s late.”

Lowering his night glass, Erik glanced over at Moira where she was perched on the hood of her snowmobile. “No more than usual,” he grunted, and squinted out over the water.

“You’re usually gone when I get here,” she said, and shifted her balaclava higher up her nose.

Polar night was deep as ever, the cold persistent with the lack of sun. Over the years, the average temperatures had risen – the proof of it strewn all over the landscape in summer – but the winter months still hit deep on the scales. This morning, the blue indicator had barely been visible around the -50 degree mark and Erik had been forced to creep forward to avoid the wind chill and the subsequent frostbites.

“Guess you’re early. Did McCoy bail out?” Erik lifted the night glass again, spooling out his senses after the Norseman’s metal and whirring engines. He could often sense it before he heard or saw it, but combining all three gave him the best opportunity to spot if fast.

“Yes. He saw the thermometer and almost threw up.” Moira’s shrug was only detectable due to the way her anorak rustled. “He can’t handle it.”

“He’s an idiot,” Erik concluded, letting the binoculars fall to his chest.

Moira made a noise in the back of her throat, scratching her eyebrow through her knitted cap. It had been a gift from the community, just as the anorak. “And you’re not?”

Erik riveted his eyes on her. “What are you playing at?”

“Nothing. Only that normal people don’t love living here unless they were born and raised. Just accept that you’re an outlier, Lehnsherr, and quit harping on Hank.”

The thing that separated Moira from her grads though, was that she never complained about it. “It doesn’t erase the fact that he’s all but useless,” Erik muttered, putting the night glass to his eyes again.

Moira was quiet from a moment. “You know,” she then said, “yours might be like that too.”

Erik clenched his jaw, the rushing of blood in his ears suddenly stronger. “He better not. And if he’s anything like Stryker, he’s staying with you.”

“God forbid then,” she grimaced under her breath, and motioned for him to hand over the night glass again.

During the months since he’d received the letter, Erik had sent two letters to the administration, telling them he wouldn’t be babysitting anyone and that they were violating and interfering with his study if they forced him to do it, potentially compromising the results. To the first he’d gotten no reply at all, which had done nothing to quell his mood. The reply to the second letter had contained a short answer listing ‘duties to university for funding’ and had left him boiling for days.

Even Kitty had asked him if something was up, but he’d told her it wasn’t her business. And as she was who she was, she’d dropped it.

Moira put the night glass to her eyes again, when there was a familiar stirring in his blood. Seconds later, a low-level hum sounded through the night. Due west, where sky met sea, the blinking set of lights of the Norseman soon showed up, growing stronger in time with the sound of the engines. The roar of the plane was harsh and Erik covered his ears against it and beside him, Moira dropped the night glass in her lap and together they watched the Norseman approaching ground, wind ripping through the air, the whiff of fuel sticking in the eyes as it came closer.

For a moment the plane seemed to hover in the air before it landed with a shattering thump. Once the engines were shut off, there were a few moments, then the ramp  opened up slowly back and a lump of red overall came clamping out.

“It’s beyond me how you survive this inverted hell,” Marie said as she came out of the back-light from the plane, crate already in her hand. ”This ain’t some place for people to live!”  

“Good morning to you too, Marie,” Moira said. “How are you?”

“Freezing my butt and ass off, that’s what,” she grumbled, before she turned to Erik. “And you look like you ready to fly off the handle, Lehnsherr. Returning my sentiment?”

Erik shook his head. “No.”

“Right, who am I kidding – you love it here, you bastard,” Marie said grimly, suppressing a shudder.

“What do the grads think?” Moira asked, eyes twinkling behind her visor.

At that, Marie laughed –  a short, barking sound. “Let me go get ‘em, and they’ll tell you straight.”

With that, she turned back to the plane and tramped up the ramp. In her absence, Moira turned back to Erik again, brows furrowed as her eyes riveted on him. He crossed his arms and the silence stretched out with Moira never blinking once. “What?” he barked when it became apparent MacTaggert was just going to stare at him for fun.

She cleared her throat. “I know you revel in the misanthrope stereotype, but I meant what I said. I swear, Lehnsherr, at least try to be civil to this kid.”

Her voice was hushed and muffled, but the words cut through nonetheless. Erik clenched his jaw, resolutely staring straight ahead.

“He hasn’t done anything to deserve it. Yet.” Moira was serious as she looked out over the frozen wharf again. “And I’ll rip you a new one if chase him away for anything other than incompetence.”

“My threshold’s low.”

“So be it. I don’t care. You didn't choose to take him, but he didn't choose to end up with you either.”

He opened his mouth to bite back when Marie shouted from inside the plane.“I know it’s balls cold, but get out so I can close her up!” followed by clattering and thumps. A few moments later two shadows stumbled out the back, bundled up to their teeth in expensive clothes and ladled with boxes and bags in their hands.

Giving him one last look, Moira slid of the warm hood of her snowmobile, eyes bright behind her own visor. “Welcome to Qikitarjuaq, former Broughton Island. I’m Dr. MacTaggert, in charge of the Marine Biology Facility here,” she said, tilting her head back.”Which one of you is Mr. Cassidy?”

The taller of the red bundled figures raised his hand. “That would be me, ma’am,” he said, voice slow and a few tufts of red hair sticking out from under his hat. “Sean Cassidy, reporting for duty.”

“This is not the military, Mr. Cassidy.” But I hope you’ll settle in nicely." Moira’s words were stern, but her tone was light as she shook his hand with her firm handshake. "And that means you’re Mr. Xavier?”

The other grad, who’d been busy handling the equipment, stepped out from Cassidy’s back. He was short, and although the gear hid any indicators, he didn’t seem to be skin and bones like Stryker had been. 

Putting down two heavy boxes on the snowy ground, he held out his hand towards Moira. “Correct. Nice to meet you Dr. MacTaggert,” he said, and his voice curled around the vowels in a distinctly non-american way. “I’ve read a few your articles – your work on contamination levels is really admirable.”

Moira smiled brightly enough to make crow's feet appear in the corners of her eyes. “Thank you, and nice to meet you too, Charles. I’m sorry you won’t be staying with me,” she said, before turning back to her own brat again. "That pleasure is all on the gentleman over there."

“Oh, right,” Xavier instead turned to Erik. His face was covered with fabrics and a visor, but even through the dark, Erik could see the light in his enthusiastic eyes. He clenched his jaw.

“You must be Dr. Lehnsherr. I’m sorry for all the inconvenience this must have caused you. I take the freedom to blame that on Dr. Frost though. Charles Xavier.”

Xavier reached out his mitten-clad hand. Erik stared at it, disbelieving, but when Moira sent him a look he did give Xavier a curt nod. “Welcome.”

“Thank you,” Xavier said, eyes crinkling even as his hand fell to his side, useless.

Erik suppressed a sigh. “That’s all you’ve got?” he said, pointing at the boxes on the ground.

Behind his visor, Xavier’s blue eyes glinted, and he shrugged. “Yes, and the backpack of course. Should be enough for two months, if there’s a washing machine.”

“No. You wash by hand,” Erik told him, and motioned for the snowmobile. “You’ll ride on the sled. Luggage beside the crate.”

Xavier nodded, bent down and with without much effort, hefted one of the boxes up on the space behind the crate. Erik grabbed the other, surprisingly heavy box, put it beside it before he latched down the both of them with the flat hook straps. If he pulled a little harder than necessary to secure it, it was nobody’s business but his own.

As he worked, though, he could feel Xavier’s eyes on him, insistent and enervating as they followed his every move. So when the last hook was in place, Erik riveted his eyes on him, “What are you staring at?”

Xavier’s raised his eyebrows, but then he stepped forward, . “Will they be enough?” he said, motioning towards the boxes and straps.

“Will what be enough?” Erik unhooked the helmet from the steering handle with jerky movements.

“The straps, for the trip,” Xavier said, his voice questioning. “I’ve been told it’s rather bumpy –”

“Didn’t know you were a transport expert.” The kid might be strong, but whatever points that had got him, they quickly dropped at his incompetence.

“I never claimed – “ Xavier started, but Erik cut him off before he gained any speed.

“Get on the sled. Or we will freeze here,” he said, popping open the seat of the snowmobile to thrust his spare helmet in Xavier’s direction.

Xavier didn’t take it immediately, but Erik at least didn’t have to prompt him again before he pulled into onto his head and sat down on the sled, hands clutched around the bars attaching it to the back of the snowmobile.

Checking the engine one last time, Erik turned back to him. “Do you want to be strapped down as well?”

“I think I can hold on, sir.” Xavier’s voice was, despite everything, not snide. Erik raised his eyebrows at that, but let it slide as he turned around, seeking out Moira – finding her in an animated discussion with the other grad. She always took to them with a surprising speed and a level of trust that made Erik shudder. If it weren’t for their location, it’d get her in trouble.

“MacTaggert,” he barked, causing her to snap her head around. “We’re off.”

It was too dark to see anything other than the glint of Moira’s visor, and her raised hand. “Safe trip – and take care, Mr. Xavier,” she shouted.

Xavier lifted his hand in a wave. “I will!” he said, “See you in two months then, Sean!”

The other grad kid laughed. “Bet on it, Charles,” was the last thing they could hear before the snowmobile engine roared to life, pushing the silence to the sides as Erik maneuvered them away towards the Eastern Shore, the darkness closing in around them like a jaw.

Curling his hand around the steering handles, Erik followed his own tracks back to the station. The rumbling engine was loud enough to drive away any other sound beside itself and his own breathing. And for that, he was immensely grateful. If he’d had to listen to the slow, coughing breaths of Xavier for the hour, he would have gone mad. Not that he wasn’t a good way there already, having had it simmer inside him for almost five months in the darkness. He felt Xavier’s eyes on him, watching his back, and it made something deep inside his bones twist and curl with unease. He hadn’t been watched in ages. By a human being, at least. If Xavier turned out to be one of those quiet types with their passive eyes and empty words, Erik wasn’t going to let him stay. Let the university cut his funds, he wouldn’t stand for it, he thought, gritting his teeth and drove them over a crest.

The journey was, apart from the rumbling, completely silent. After half an hour that seemed way too short, the familiar shape of the station came into sight.

The compact facility with its lopsided antenna that had never seemed more ominous.

His knees creaked as he stepped off the snowmobile, his boots making prints in the snow as he then turned around and watched Xavier gingerly rising from his seat, movements careful. Without a word, Erik started to unlatch the flat hook straps from the luggage and groceries. Xavier hadn't stopped looking at him still, but there was no way to avoid them, he was starting to realize. Only way to avoid it seemed to be to get used to it.

Erik stuck the crate of groceries under his arm, and went up the stairs. He unlocked the door with the key. “In here. Quick."

At least good at following orders, Xavier scurried past him and as soon as he was inside, Erik closed the door, shutting the frigid cold out.

The station was, compared to most homes, not on the warm side. Erik had adjusted, and now the fourteen degrees of inside was almost blazing. Xavier could whine about it how much he wanted, but it was to be said that keeping the difference between in and outside as small as possible was good for all purposes.

“Set up your space in the den,” Erik said as he started to peel of his clothes, hanging them up on the hooks inside the door. “Through the door to the right.”

Xavier nodded as he put  down his heavy boxes and bent down to start unlacing his boots. He was efficient, Erik noted, before he went around the station and pressed the light switches to bathe the rooms in their usual dim glow. It wasn’t large by any means – a short hallway with a kitchen directly to the right which then spread out into a den with the radio. To the left there was a door leading into the cramped bedroom and then the bathroom off to the right.

Hopefully, it would be enough for both of them or it’d drive Xavier crazy enough to make him leave.

Erik sat down by his desk while Xavier dragged the boxes in. He watched from the corner of his eye as a foldable table and a microscope among other things were unpacked and assembled. Xavier worked quietly, not slamming and not asking for help, and after a while Erik found himself immersed in the data he’d collected from the punctured weather balloon he’d found on the pack ice.

Yet, he couldn’t disappear into it like he used to. Breaths, other than his own, breaking the silence like waves against the shore. Natural, but insistent, they made it impossible to concentrate fully on his work. It chafed and ached as he worked his jaw, trying to not let anything get to him. He was one letter away from snapping the tip of his pencil straight off, when Xavier rose from his knees with a huff.

“All done,” he said, nodding towards the little work station he’d set up – a microscope, a rack with different containers and petri dishes. “Not much, but just enough.”

Erik put down his pencil, straightening his stack of journals.

“Where will I be sleeping?” Xavier motioned for his luggage – the big backpack as well as two smaller bags.

Pushing his chair back, legs scraping against the floor, Erik stood. “Through here,” he said, and crossed the room in three strides. If it had felt small just a day ago, it was now claustrophobically tight, as there was no way to escape brushing shoulders with Xavier when he pushed past him and into the small bedroom.

It was narrow as a closet, and still there was room enough for three different beds. Ever since he’d arrived here, Erik had slept in the bunk along  the left wall, closest to the den, but there was also an even more narrow cot placed directly under the window that he’d foregone entirely. It looked uncomfortable just looking at, and while Erik didn’t have any preferences or was fussy about where to sleep, he’d take the best choice if there was any. There was a thing as too many shitty beds in a lifetime.

Studying Xavier’s face, there was nothing to see. But he proved himself lucid enough when he put his bags on the bed pressed up against the right wall. He sank down on the tough but not entirely horrible mattress, springs sighing under his weight.

“I know you’re not used to company, Dr. Lehnsherr," Xavier started, his elbows planted on his knees. The fabric of his dark navy sweater stretched over his shoulders. “But you do have a routine, isn’t that right? Only so I may fall into it if necessary.”

At least the he was smart enough to realize he wasn’t wanted here. Erik stuck his hands in the pockets of his trousers, hiding his fists. “No.”

“No?” Xavier raised his eyebrows high. “None at all?”

“Don’t touch my equipment, and you can do whatever you want,” Erik cut him off. “Apart from from freezing to death. I don't have time to dig a grave.”

Xavier looked at him for a tense moment that made Erik feel the ghost of something at the back of his neck. However, it disappeared just as quickly when Xavier huffed out an airy laugh. “Certainly," he said, looking down at his hands. "I’ll do my best.”

“I expect nothing less.” Erik straightened and rolled his shoulders. “I’m heading out now. Make yourself at home.”

The last words slipped out of him due to old, mostly forgotten habits more than anything else. Through the small window in front his desk, the wall of darkness was shivering but solid, and Erik quickly put down his journal on the surface, feeling like something had loosened in his chest.

Nothing major and nothing identifiable, but something nonetheless.

Heading out in the kitchen, he once again did his best to tune out the rustling coming from the bedroom. His body had adapted to the warmth of indoors and dragging his fingers over his cheeks, they felt warm enough for another trek out to the measuring booth. When the cold hit this low, ventures outside had to be dealt with with great care. Dress accordingly, don’t open the door without a visor on and every hour spent outside should be compensated with at least forty minutes spent indoors.

Brushing off the lingering snow from his anorak, Erik dressed in all the layers he had, pulled a balaclava over his head and left the quiet rustles and foreign breaths all to themselves.

He kept up his pace lest the cold get to him, and soon enough the silhouette of the measuring booth came into his sight. He flicked on his flashlight, sweeping it perfunctory over his surroundings before he stepped onto the ladder and jotted down the different measures with more force than necessary; the tip of the pencil going straight through the paper on the last period.

It was ridiculous, letting something like this push him out of his own home. He’d known and braced himself for the impact Xavier would have on his life. He’d built up the proper anger. He’d sat with the white noise from the radio crackling through the den as he worked to create enough of a tolerance to refrain from committing outright murder. And yet, nothing he’d done had prepared him for Xavier’s demeanor. The kid had spread out only his designated space and still, his presence filled up the once relatively large station until it made Erik’s lungs feel too tight and forced him back out here.

Out to the comforting silence and the neverending heavens with their starry skies.

With the data collected, Erik turned back into his own footsteps and hurried home, teeth aching. The trek took thirty minutes round trip and while the kid might have invaded his space, he would not make Erik acquire the frostbite he’d avoided for ten years.

Pulling the door closed behind him, he heard footsteps coming from the den. As he hung the rifle and his flashlight on the wall again, Xavier had showed up in the doorway, hands shoved in his pockets. “How did it go?” he asked, licking at his lips.

Erik shrugged, pulling the anorak over his head. “As usual,” he said, making it clear that he was not open for any sort of further conversation.

Anorak and boots in the wardrobe in the hallway, Erik pulled out the bit of caribou meat he’d thawed during the day. Xavier’s eyes were on him as he cut open the plastic by hand, letting the still lingering blood soak into the brown paper beneath it. Determined to not let those eyes get to him, he took out a cutting board and pan from the cupboard above the sink and began to shred the meat as finely as he could. Always keeping his back towards Xavier, he fetched the rest of the ingredients and soon, the smell of frying onion and the rhythmic clicking of metal against wood echoed in the small space.

Then, after a long stretch of silence, Xavier cleared his throat again. “Is there anything I can do?” he asked, his voice low enough to almost be drowned out by the fizzing butter in the pan.

Suppressing a sigh, Erik motioned towards the cupboard above his head. “Plates are there. Cutlery in the second drawer from the top.”

He heard Xavier push away from the doorway, his sock clad feet shuffling over the floor as he squeezed himself in between Erik and the table. Erik angled his body towards the wall to make space, the edge of the counter digging deep into his hip. Xavier breathed out a small thank you as he stood on his tip toes to reach for the two plates on the top shelf. As he stretched up, his shirt rode up a bit, showing of a pale strip of stomach.

Before, Erik had doubted if Xavier was fit enough to stay out here. If you didn’t have meat on your bones, you wouldn’t stand for days like this. Under his bulky clothing – and the horrible overall the university had sent with him – Xavier however, was steady. Short and stocky, his body was as adapted to the climate as a foreigner could be.  

This close, he was also radiating warmth into Erik’s space like a radiator. Biting his tongue, Erik pressed himself closer to the counter while Xavier inched out from behind him, smiling quickly before he slipped out, brushing an elbow against Erik’s back, and started to set the table with careful movements.

He didn’t ask to do more, and so Erik focused on finishing up the stew in record time. The meat had barely cooked through before he put the pot down on the small table, the contents almost sloshing up the sides.

As Erik sat down, Xavier closed his eyes and inhaled. “I must say, this smells delicious.”

Grabbing his bowl and serving himself a good portion, Erik shrugged. “It’s food,” he said, and tucked into the stew.

He wasn’t sure if Xavier did sigh or not, but he didn’t say anything else while he served himself and started eating as well. He did, much to Erik’s annoyance, make small sounds of approval, up until the point where Erik riveted his eyes on him to make him stop. Xavier looked back at him, his blue eyes pulsing, the corner of his mouth ticking as he licked his lips, but when Erik went back to eating without another word, he followed suit.

The silence might have been different and incomplete, but Erik figured he’d take what he could get.

As long as there were no words, all was well.

* * *

This time of year, there was no relying on light as an alarm clock. Constant darkness caused a certain sluggishness and while he kept a tab on his times not to ring up Kitty in the middle of the night, he didn’t conform to anything about when it was time to rise. He did, admittedly, sleep almost twice as much in the winter as he did during the infinite days of summer, but his inner clock was adjusted enough not to make him wake up after ten.

Xavier, on the other hand, seemed to have kept his normal routine.

Cursing at the empty, unmade bed, Erik struggled out from beneath his heap of quilts and blankets, pulled a thick sweater over his head and headed for the kitchen.

Last night, his call to Kitty had been delayed due to a blizzard raging through Barrow, and as there was nothing else to keep him up, he’d went to sleep early. There had been a serenity, if an slight discomfort, to the closed bedroom. Outside the door, through the gap under the door, Xavier had been working quietly at his station, going through his papers and what not, his mechanical pen taking small, blockish notes in his moleskin. Erik hadn’t fallen asleep until that new pull of rushing hemoglobin had come into the room as well, sighing and settling into the other bed with a huff.

And now, he was still up and running before Erik.

Upon entering the kitchen, he found Xavier fully engaged in making what seemed to be some sort of oatmeal. There was also a kettle gently heating up the water for the coffee. 

Upon his entry, Xavier spun around, looking as alert as Erik felt dead. “Good morning.”

It was as far from a good morning as it could possibly be. So Erik simply nodded and marched up to the pantry, pulled out a flask from the top shelf and after pouring the thick content into the cap, he knocked it back with a grimace.

He was about to put it back in cupboard when he felt how Xavier eyed him from the side. “What is that?” he asked, slightly hesitant but still chirpy.

Erik held up the bottle for him to read the label. _Ekte tran med sitronsmak_. “Norwegian cod liver oil.”

That only made Xavier frown. “What’s it for?”

“Keeps depression away." Erik said, holding up the cap for Xavier to take. "Want some?” .

Here, Xavier hesitated for a moment before he took it. “Here’s to health then,” he said, eyes darting quickly between Erik and the thick, tawny liquid.

“Just drink it.”

That earned him a sidelong glance, but Xavier did put the cap to his lips and knock it back. And there was an immense satisfaction in watching as he tried to keep his face from scrunching up in utter disgust.

“That is – “

Erik almost smiled. “Just say it.”

“Urgh,” Xavier coughed. “That is _vile_.”

“Indeed it is,” Erik felt rather smug as he screwed the lid back. Disgusting as it was, you needed it as not to be totally handicapped during the winter. “But it clears your head,” he added as he stuffed the oil back in the pantry.

Beside the stove, a timer dinged and Xavier startled around. He almost knocked right into Erik, before he caught himself and swiftly lifted the saucepan from the hotplate to place it on the potholder on the kitchen table. As he took off the lid, Erik saw that he’d actually managed to cook together oatmeal of all things.

“When did you wake up?” Erik asked him as he sat down. Xavier had, having learnt from yesterday, placed out two bowls. There was also two cups put out and Erik almost fetched the kettle with his powers, before he stopped himself and Xavier beat him to it.

“About seven thirty, I think. Got some work done before this.” Xavier said as he sat down on the opposite side. “I was just actually planning on heading out to collect samples.”

Erik stopped reaching for the ladle. “Alone?”

“Yes, but I thought waiting for you would be the best thing to do,” Xavier ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know the surroundings, but for the research I need water.”

“Hmm,” Erik said, and took a sip of his coffee.

Something which he immediately regretted. Coughing, he stared down at the thing in his mug. “ _What is this_?”

From across the table, Xavier looked shocked. He lifted the top of the kettle and looked down at the dark liquid. “It’s coffee?” he then said, hedging the word at the end in case it was the wrong thing to say, his eyes wide and rather confused.

Still sputtering from the putrid taste, Erik sent him a look that would’ve evaporated him on the spot, had that been one of its qualities. “ _This_ is not coffee. It’s a liquid heart attack.”

“Oh. That’s unfortunate." Xavier had the audacity to look sheepish. "I admit, I haven’t made that much coffee in my life. I lean more towards tea.”

Of course he did, the British moron.

“Should I redo it?”

God _forbid_. “No, just leave it,” Erik sighed and put the coffee off to the side, making good promise to never let Xavier in the vicinity of the coffee making ever again. If Edie had taught him milk of any kind ruined coffee, she should have tasted that. Drinking tar would have been a blessing. “What sort of water samples do you need?”

“Any, really,” Xavier said, as he too put his mug to the side and started to ladle his bowl with the hopefully better quality oatmeal. Not that Erik had any high hopes. “As long as it’s as uncontaminated by humans as possible.”

While the Arctic was one of the least compromised places on Earth, it still wasn’t considered clean at all. Moira’s research was only one thing that showed that. “Then either go to the shore, though you probably won't have much luck there. Better to find a breathing hole.”

Xavier raised his eyebrows. “Breathing hole?”

“For the ringed seals,” Erik said, slowly. “Can be found all over the pack ice.”

“Of course,” Xavier shook his head. “I’m a bit focused on the smaller particulates, you see. Must have slipped my mind.” He smiled again, as he seemed to do a lot. It was a warm, radiant thing in all its subtlety. Erik slipped him a short look and tucked into his oatmeal again.

They ate in silence for a while, where nothing but the scraping of metal against porcelain could be heard. It wasn’t too foreign from most mornings, until Xavier put down his spoon. He leaned his head in his hand for a moment, looking out at the darkness outside, before he turned to Erik again.

“So what is that you do, exactly? They told me you were an expert on polar meteorology and climate studies, but are you conducting continuous independent research, or on a governmental mission? You seem to have been here for a long time.”

At that, Erik stopped chewing for a moment. The kid definitely had some goddamned nerve. The mere thought of him working for the government was simply – frankly, it was disgusting enough to make his bite swell and grow insipid in his mouth. He swallowed and stood up from the table. “Independent. Funded by a meteorological trust and the university,” he said as he opened the tap. “And a deep climate study span over thirty years. You should know that.”

The pipes gurgled in protest before a steady stream of freezing water rushed out the tap. “Maybe I should. But that means you’re stationed here for thirty years?” Xavier’s voice was indecipherable, but it had a certain tilt to it that should have made Erik bristle. Instead, he shrugged and dropped some detergent into his bowl.

“Nineteen to go, yes,"he said, holding the bowl under the spray and watched as the oats swirled down the drain. "Got any problem with that?”

Even though he couldn’t see him, Erik didn’t have to imagine how Xavier’s eyebrows creased. “Why, no?”

“Good. For some it's offensive that I don't appreciate company.” Erik put the clean bowl on the drying rack, making the metal bars rattle. He’d dealt with that form of pity all too many times. “Go get dressed. We’re leaving in ten,” he then said, drying his hands on the dishtowel by his hip.” Keep in mind it’s -38 degrees.”

Xavier smiled a tick of a smile, before he nodded. “Certainly,” he said, and scurried off to the bedroom, leaving his dishes still on the table.

Erik bit down on his anger before it bubbled over, frothing and sizzling. “Xavier!” he shouted.

Immediately, his head peeked back around the doorframe. “Yes?”

“Dishes,” Erik pointed at the mug and bowl still sitting on the worn tabletop. “Take care. Of your own dishes.”

“Oh, how stupid – I’m sorry,” Xavier laughed, his eyes crinkling as he rolled up the sleeves of his sweater and pressed himself in between Erik and the table, warm and solid as his chest dragged along Erik’s back, their hips knocking together for a second. He flicked the tap again, and made great work of washing everything, even if he used way too much detergent, making a cloud of suds cling to the sides of the sink.

“Don’t do it again,” Erik told his back as Xavier dried his things, putting it back in the cupboard.

Where anyone else might have nodded tightly and accepted their faults, Xavier just beamed.  “Is that so? Would you punish me if I did?” he said, something wry in his tone.

Erik just stared back at him. “Go. Now.” he said after a moment of silence, pointing towards the bedroom.

At that, Xavier’s grin did not dissipate, but he did nod and disappeared again, leaving the kitchen empty and silent but for the gurgling pipes. With his space cleared, Erik dragged his hands over his face. The loosened piece in his chest had tilted in its place and was pressing intently against something he didn’t know what it was. It should have been annoyance, and there was a fair amount of that, but there was something else there as well that he couldn’t quite shake.

Brushing his damp hands on his trousers, he proceeded to dress in the same attire as yesterday. As he pulled the anorak over his head, he heard the distinct rustling of winter wear before Xavier turned up in the doorway again. He was wearing the horrible red overall he’d no doubt bought from the university and holding the accompanying visor in his hand.

“You won’t need that now.” Erik motioned for the visor. “It’ll just fog up your vision.”

Xavier furrowed his brows, looking down at the visor. “I needed it yesterday?”

“Yes. Because it was -50 and a five percent wind chill. You’d have frozen your nose straight off,” Erik told him.

“But at minus -38 I won’t?”

With a sigh, Erik motioned towards the dark window, to the still small wind spinner beside the thermometer. “See? No wind.”

“That’s true,” Xavier said. “So I should –?”

Erik pulled his balaclava over his nose. “Just cover your nose and ears unless you want them to fall off.”

“Right. It would do a great damage to my handsome face, and we can’t have that, can we?”

Turning, Erik caught Xavier grinning so wide it looked as if his face would split in two. His eyes glittered like rippling water under the sun and it was like getting caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck.

It was a long moment before Erik could turn his head again, swallowing. Then he ripped the door open and marched out, not waiting for Xavier to follow.

Just as always, the onslaught on the cold was brutal. Erik quickly worked to get the new air into his lungs as he stomped down the stairs where a light dusting of snow had gathered on the bottom step. Behind him, Xavier dragged in a long, wheezing breath, and just as the door slammed shut, he burst into the mandatory coughs.

Flicking on his flashlight, Erik let the beam travel over the banks until Xavier’s lungs had adapted to the air and his boots came creaking up on his left side.

“Done?” Erik directed his light towards the flagpole, making sure nothing had gotten stuck in the sudden temperature drop.

Xavier sniffled. “Will it always be like that?” he asked, muffling another cough in the crease of his elbow.

“Until you get used to it,” Erik he clicked the flashlight off, letting his eyes adjust. The flashlight was only needed in special situations; come walking and other transportation, the stars were enough to lead the way. Hitching his backpack up a little higher, he started walking along the worn path.

Xavier made a noncommittal noise, following in his trail. “How long did that take for you?”

Erik might never had had any problems with the isolation at the station, but to claim the adjustment to the temperatures had been easy would be to outright lie. Now, he felt at home with extreme lows, but when he’d first arrived, he’d sometimes thought he wouldn’t venture outside until the bar pushed itself passed the -25 degree mark. As he’d arrived in summer, when it could sometimes stay in the positive numbers for a whole of twenty-four hours, the change had at least been more gradual.

“None of your business,” Erik said, keeping his tone curt and dismissive. “Be quiet.”

There was one thing to have his living quarters contaminated by sound – he’d adjusted well enough to Kitty after all – but there was  something in him that would go to great lengths to keep Xavier quiet out here.

This silence was so unblemished, it made Erik’s chest ache with the mere thought of having it broken.

Xavier hummed, but he obeyed as the began the trek towards the measuring booth. Overhead, the darkness was steady as always, but so much lighter than it ever was in the cities. All the stars shone on their own and with the snow reflecting everything back towards the sky, it created an almost surreal atmosphere. Once they reached the booth, Erik did quick work of taking the measures.

When he stepped off of the ladder, he turned to Xavier head on. “What is that you’re looking for?”

Xavier, who’d wound a scarf tightly around his face, tilted his head. “Water, firstly. Later, I might have to do some digging, collect some ice cores, but that’s only if I don’t get any results from this.

Erik put his flashlight back into the pocket of his anorak. “Best luck if you find a big breathing hole then,” he said, cocking his head due east, along his own worn path.

“Alone?”

Erik levelled him with a flat look and simply started walking again.

The cold had caused the ice to pack quite far out, but it wasn’t always as safe as the all year round ice was. Reaching the summer edge, Erik brought out his measuring stick and thumped it once on the ice. The vibration travelled through it, low and rumbling, but without any high pitched squeaks of breaking.

“All clear.”

Without a word, Xavier stepped over the edge and headed for the colony of breathing holes over the pack ice. Picking his night glass from around his neck, Erik swept his gaze over his surroundings. The hills, the rubble and the span of snow was still. No lurking predators in the shadows. A few darker spots were seals resting on the ice beside the white lumps that revealed the opening to their escape. They had spread out during winter, some even migrating so far south Erik wouldn’t see them until the light came back.

Xavier was kneeling by the edge of one of the lumps, scraping away the thin ice crust and slowly filling a thermos-looking container with water. The light from his headlamp bobbed with his movements and he didn't even seem to register when Erik come up to stand behind him, checking the surroundings with regular interval.

However, when almost ten minutes had passed with Xavier moving nothing but his arm, Erik let the night glass hang around his neck and walked closer, until the beam of his flashlight enveloped Xavier completely.

“You’ve got to keep moving.”

Startled, Xavier spun around, squinting in the sharp light. “What?” he said. The water in the container sloshed dangerously.

“You’ve got to keep _moving_. Can’t stay still for this long.” To prove his point, Erik took hold of Xavier’s arm and pulled him onto his feet, which had sunken deep into the light snow. “Or you won’t even notice you’ve lost your toes until it’s too late.”

In the beam of the flashlight, Xavier wiggled his feet, the snow rustling around his spiked snowboots. “Very true,” he said, shaking his head as he looked up at Erik.

Erik raised his eyebrows, slightly annoyed. “What now? We can’t have that?”

There was a pause, but then Xavier let out an explosive laugh. “Yes, exactly!”

Erik lowered the beam of his flashlight, pointing it at the ground. Suddenly, there was a splash sounding from a huge hole to the left. Without looking, he recognized the familiar shape of something warm-blooded under the ice even before it peaked it’s head over the surface, breathing loudly. He trailed his flashlight in its direction, until it landed on two dark, round eyes above a short, bristled snout.

Xavier gasped. “Is that a ringed seal?” he asked, not taking his eyes off the creature in the water.

“Probably. They’re everywhere,” Erik said.

The seal yapped in reply, studying them intently as it dipped its nose below the surface. Xavier had stopped moving again, his hands limp by his sides as he watched the seal’s bobbing head with an open fascination.  They both watched as it swam around for bit, appearing and reappearing over the water. A few times it stopped to look at them, as if questioning why they weren’t jumping in to come and play, before it then rolled over in usual fashion and dove back home.

After the ripples on the water had died down, Xavier cleared his throat. “It’s so fearless. Was that one of MacTaggert’s?” he asked, looking up at Erik and squinting in the sharp light from the flashlight.

“No idea. Didn’t see enough of the tail.” Erik said, dipping the flashlight even lower. “Are you done?”

“Almost.” Xavier bent down to pluck the lid to the container off the ground and screwed it on tightly, lest the water would slosh out over his hands and clothes. “There! Which way is home?”

Erik watched as he stuck the bottle in his belt before he turned around. “This way.”

The trek back to the station was almost as silent and uneventful as the one there, but about a kilometer from the station, the wind picked up a bit, whining around their ears as they sped up, almost running the last few yards. Xavier was quick up the stairs, ripping the door open so that Erik only had to fall inside before he could pull it close again, cutting off the cold.

His joints felt stiff as he pulled off his gloves and unlaced his boots. The cold had left them aching and tired, but he forced them to move nonetheless. He was almost done with the right one, when Xavier emerged from his scarf, cheeks red from the exposure to the wind.

“May I use the shower?” he asked, looking down at Erik where he was sitting on the shoe rack.

“Fine,” he muttered. “Wait until the water gets hot in the tank before you open the tap. Less wastage.”

“Yes, of course. Thank you. I do feel rather filthy after five days of travelling and what not.” Xavier spared Erik a quick smile as he hung up his overall on one of the racks to dry before he disappeared towards the bedroom.

By the time Erik had dressed down to his thermal set, anorak neatly disposed of in the wardrobe, the creaking door to the bathroom had opened and slammed closed. He sat down by his desk, flipping through the large journals until he found the day’s page and jotted down his numbers. There was something to be said about the mundanity of the task, and yet it was clear as day that if he were to loosen on any of his routines, there was no turning back.

The pipes from the water tank gurgled, the metal rumbling as water rushed forth into the shower. Erik bit the end of his pencil. Xavier had proven to have a bit more bite than he’d foreseen, but while there was a lot to be wished from the kid’s behaviour, he’d actually listened. If it was only due to the fact that there was a risk that he might die if he didn’t wasn’t of that great importance. It was enough that he didn’t whine – although that might come later, with Erik’s luck.

Probably when the hot water ran out.

When he’d put down the last dot in the soon-to-be graph, there was suddenly a crackling noise from the radio. Casting a glance at the old alarm clock on the kitchen table, Erik sighed. His inner clock might be disrupted, but his perception of time was usually on spot nonetheless.

Making sure Xavier was still nowhere near done, Erik sat down by the radio, putting the headphones on as he beamed his signal.

“ _Victor Yankee 0-3670_ , established. Calling _Alpha Lima 0-742_. Repeat, _Victor Yankee 0-3670_ , calling _Alpha Lima 0-742_.”

“ _Alpha Lima 0-742_ , established.”

“ _Victor Yankee 0-3670_ , _Alpha Lima 0-742_ connection established.”

As usual, there was a short delay before Kitty’s voice cut through. “Lehnsherr. Back again?”

“Pryde,” Erik said. “For now.”

“Right, you’re in the middle of blizzard season now, aren’t you?” she asked, the accompanying sound of rustling paper almost drowning out her words.

Erik plucked the ashtray with the last two cigarettes from last month’s double batch from the top of the radio. “Not for another month,” he said curtly, sticking one of them between his teeth. “March is the worst, as you should know, Pryde, if you did your reading.”

She cleared her throat. “Lehnsherr. I’m merely here to collect your data if that’s what you want, but don’t be an ass to me simply because you can. If something’s wrong, tell me, but don’t be all passive aggressive because you have no one but yourself to be mean to. It’s not constructive.”

Biting down on the butt of the cigarette, Erik closed his eyes, something green and queasy at the back of his throat. It wasn’t something he usually acknowledged, but something in Kitty’s sharp words held a certain sort of truth that was hard to hide from.

Kitty sighed. “So, do you have said data?”

She sounded less acidic this time around, so Erik cleared his throat again. “Yes,” he said, flipping the journal open. “February 6th. 38 degrees negative Celsius at noon, humidity, 15 per cent...”

He rattled off the rest, Kitty’s hums the only thing proving she was still connected. When he’d read the last data to her, Erik put out his cigarette in the ashtray and took a clean breath, before he said,

“Calls might be scattered for the next months.”

“Oh. Why’s that?” she asked, so quick Erik almost wondered if she already knew.

“Grad student doing data collecting for his thesis staying here,” and there was something cruel in the way saying it made it even more true. "So I do have someone else to be mean to."

There was a short pause on the other end of the line, before her voice came through again, more subdued this time around. “Explains you being crankier than normal. You don’t take them on do you?”

“No.” Erik shook his head, before he realized she couldn’t see him. “No, I don’t.”

“Yet he’s there.”

There was something in her voice then, something that Erik couldn’t quite put his finger on. Ever since she’d first called him up, over three years ago, there had never been anything heartfelt between them. During the last year, they’d transferred from strictly professional to a short exchange of inside jokes and games, but nothing more than normal colleagues. So when her voice tilted in a direction Erik had never heard before, he immediately tensed.

“Yes. University bullied me into it.”

She hummed again, going silent. “They must have had something huge on you.” she then said, voice on right track again. “No way you’d do it otherwise.”

“They threatened to cut my funding,” Erik muttered, stabbing his cigarette in the ashtray. “Also, they didn’t reply.”

At that, she actually laughed, low and subdued. “That’s so childish!”

“Tell me about it.”

“Is he bothering you?” she then asked.

“He’s invading my space. Of course he’s bothering me -- I never wanted him here.”

“All right, all right. Don’t get mad at me,” she said, casual but with a hint of a warning should he press on further. “Thanks for the update, but now I need to go. See you next week.”

“Unless he freezes to death and I’m too busy digging a grave,” Erik said darkly.

Kitty sighed and he could practically envision her shaking her head. “Unless I don’t then. Take care, Lehnsherr.”

“Take care, Pryde.”

A bit of crackling, and then: “ _Alpha Lima 0-742_ , disconnecting.”

“ _Victor Yankee 0-3670_ , disconnecting.”

As he hung the headphones on their hook on the wall, the door to the bathroom opened. Erik turned in his seat, his eyes landing on a  slightly tousled Xavier. He had his towel slung low around his hips, his freckled shoulders dusted with small drops of water that glimmered in the kerosene light.

Not seeming to notice, he sent Erik a quick smile. “Forgot my clothes in the bedroom,” he explained, shivering as he disappeared into the closet-sized room without closing the door.

Erik braced his limp arms on the desk, staring out at the darkness as he did his best not to listen to the thump of Xavier’s towel hitting the floor, the rustling as he got dressed in one of his many cable knitted sweaters, and wondered why he even cared. He hadn’t cared when he’d caught a glimpse of Moira’s naked full body profile for the week he’d all but lived in her pocket. He never cared. He’d made a life out of not caring – or rather caring too much about things with goals so far away on the horizon, he’d be more likely to die before he ever reached them.

Before he’d finished the thought, Xavier came back out again, pulling another of his colorful sweaters over his head. This time, it was a deep forest green.

“I thought  heard voices out here before – were you talking to someone?” he asked, something playful in his voice as he emerged from the sweater with his hair wet and tousled like a schoolboy’s.

“I reported my data to NOAA.” Erik took another drag on his cigarette, letting the toxins settle deep into his lungs.

Xavier nodded as he sat down by his station, containers already uncapped. “So that’s what the radio’s for. I thought you were talking to your wife at first,” he said, dripping a few drops onto a slide and placing it under the microscope.

Erik broke off his drag, the smoke dispersing in the air. “What made you think I was married?”

At that, Xavier leaned his head in his hand, eyes intent on Erik. “Nothing, really. Only you seem rather – composed, out here,” he said, his voice warm and curious. “I could never do it – be lonely like this. It takes a certain strength of will, I think. Especially in this cold.” He shuddered theatrically.

“I’m not lonely,” Erik said, a sour feeling settling around his molars. “It suits me.”

It was true. He wasn’t lonely. It was simply that there was no one left. From the moment Edie had died, it had slowly, became a truth whether he wanted it or not, just as much as every other part of him.  Over the years, it had intently transformed from a curse to a blessing – made isolation an impeccable choice instead of a burden.

That was an empirical truth.

“Oh. All right.” Xavier’s voice had lost the playful edge, and he quietly went back to his work.

Erik too turned back to his graphs, and slowly, a silence settled. It wasn’t as comfortable as the deafening cottonball silence he was used to, but it would do. As long as he ignored Xavier and kept on going exactly as he had, he would get used to it.

When he’d completed his note-taking, Erik stood up from his chair and stretched out his sore back. After hearing a satisfactory pop, he pulled his sweater over his head and went through his workout routine. Just as he had yesterday, Xavier’s eyes flicked towards him constantly, intent and unnerving. And just as yesterday, Erik ignored them as he finished and headed for the shower, only venturing into the bedroom to fetch his clothes before he closed the door around him.

The water might be lukewarm all thanks to Xavier, and growing colder by the minute. But the crispness of it helped Erik re-organize his jumbled and cut up thoughts. It was a constant struggle; trying to find something to land his consciousness on as it was all flying around like in a hurricane. Everything was going in a hundred different directions, and he was simply trying to hang on to the madness it had torn up within him. This closeness – it was driving him mad. He’d suspected it would, but now that it was actually happening, Erik found it hard to breathe. It was one thing to feel the physicality of the cramped space – his difficulty breathing, his dry mouth as there was no space to run and hide – a whole another to try and hide in his own mind, with all the different thoughts racing for the lead position and dragging unnecessary emotions up from their depths.

Shaking his head, droplets flying, Erik gulped in a breath and closed off, letting only the sensations of his body occupy his mind.

His skin felt too tight as it did when he didn’t masturbate for a couple of days. He’d resigned himself to the fate almost as soon as he’d gotten the letter. Of course, he could do it anyway, but there was something inside of Erik that just couldn’t. If it was linked with pride or manners, he didn’t know. What he did know was that none of it should matter, here, but still, it did.

All clean, he stepped out of the shower and toweled off. The cold water had prevented the mirror from fogging up as it usually did, and as he pulled the sweater over his head, he caught a glimpse of his own eyes in the glass.

When he was a child, Edie had said that he had had a wildness within him. A restlessness and an agitation that had followed him like a thundercloud that would strike at the oddest moments to throw him into fights and creative spurs. It had followed him through bruised high school years, to a stinging college and graduate school – inspired and hindered him in equal measures. Edie had always said, until she hadn’t, that it could be a curse or a blessing, if he only learnt how to use it but that she would never understand where it stemmed from.

Erik knew, but he had never seen it spelled out as it did now; his eyes clear, bright and fickle as a flame.

He turned off the light and closed the door behind him. In the den, Xavier was nowhere to be seen, his station abandoned. Quietly, Erik walked round the station, putting out the lights by hand, checking on the fire on last time, before he slipped into the bedroom.

In the doorway, he stopped for a moment. On the right, Xavier was already curled up so tightly he was all but a lump. He’d pulled the blankets up so high around him, only his hair and his nose were visible. With his eyes closed, he looked much younger, more like a kid than a admittedly young looking adult.

It was all in the eyes, it seemed.

Erik peeled off his sweater and pulled on the thermal set he normally slept in and crawled under the blankets as well. He didn’t bother to turn on the light this time, only sneaking a hand up to curl around the brass frame – concentrating on the metal’s quiet hum to tune out everything that wasn’t supposed to be there. In the other bed, Xavier slept on. His steady breaths crowded out the silence and disrupted Erik’s thoughts. Usually, it was a fight to go to sleep on the best of nights. Now, however, Erik found his eyes drooping, like a blanket pressing down on his consciousness, like waves lapping against the shore.

It, in itself, should have alerted him. But writing it off as exhaustion, Erik turned on his side and let the currents drag him under and into the deep dark and blessedly quiet depths.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would never have dreamed of this fic getting as well-received as it has been. I am so so grateful for it you guys -- thanks to everyone who has read and commented on the first chapter!


	3. -40° Celsius

_“Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.”_

* * *

 

 

Over the weeks, they settled into something tentative that might have been enough to last for the rest of Xavier’s stay. Erik took his trips out to the booth like clockwork, sent up a few weather balloons, worked out and reported to Kitty as he’d always done, while Xavier kept to himself and his research. He sometimes followed Erik back out to the shore to collect more samples or asked him for help with extracting ice cores from the mainland.

But apart from asking relatively relevant questions, smiling all the time and humming under his breath while he conducted his analyses, he was nothing more than a small nuisance.

Once the first discomfort had died down, Erik knew he would have survived it. It was still there, especially during those mornings when Charles headed up before him. While he’d learnt his lesson and washed his dishes, all the items were misplaced. Erik once found the condensed milk in the fridge, despite the fact that he’d always picked it from the pantry. But if there was one thing that Xavier was actually good at, it was adapting. So as soon as Erik told him to remember from where he took the ingredients, he conformed. And so, they managed.

But that all came apart about three weeks into Xavier’s stay, at the heels of a storm.

It wasn’t as if Erik hadn’t felt it, though. Over the course of a decade, he’d learnt how important it was to trust your gut and especially the percepted tension in the air just before a storm rolled in. Dismissing it was as stupid as it was dangerous, and yet, it was exactly what he’d done. He’d ventured outside in full gear, and just barely made it back before the wind speed picked up with such force, there was no way it was anything other than one of the vicious February blizzards.

Pulling the door closed behind using his powers – the wind was simply too strong – Erik sunk down onto the shoe rack, gulping in the warm air as he rested his head in his hands; the edge of his visor cutting into his palms.

From the den, familiar, rapid footsteps approached.

“You’re home late.” Xavier leaned against the door jamb, brows furrowed and his arms crossed over his chest. “Did something happen?”

Erik took another warm breath.

“Almost got caught,” he said, using one of the hooks above him to pull himself onto his feet, heart beating wildly in his throat.

Xavier’s eyebrows climbed. “Polar bear?” he asked, cautious. After Erik had told him about how intrusive the bears could become when food was scarce, he’d been slightly more wary whenever they ventured out. That Erik had used the descriptive example of the mauled body Moira once had found in a snowdrift on the northern tip of the island probably played a part in his sudden spike in caution, but at least it had done it’s job.

Better safe than sorry.

Motioning towards the window, Erik muttered. “Blizzard.”

In just the short span of time it had taken Erik to run back to the station, the storm had swallowed the world outside. Whiteness whipped past the window panes, and once you listened, the winds howled loudly, their lament penetrating the walls with ease.

“Oh dear.”

Unfastening his clouding visor, Erik started to unlace his boots with stiff fingers. “He’s punishing us for something, I gather.”

“God?” Xavier tore his eyes from the chaos outside. It was rather hypnotic once inside protective walls.

“Sila,” Erik said, putting his boots on the shoe rack. “Inuit weather spirit.”

At that, Xavier’s eyes lit up. “Oh, have we angered him with our heathen ways?” he said, grinning that tricky smile he wasn’t using as much nowadays. Not like the first couple of days.

“If there’s more than three of these,” Erik pointed at the blur outside, “Mrs. Ijiit will definitely think so.” And subsequently deny him of the best of her caribou meat. The woman might barely reach his chest, but for what she lacked in height, she compensated in authority. Either that, or the spirits had given the old angakkuq woman the power to grow at will; Erik wouldn’t put that beneath her.

“She’s the one who gave you the anorak?”

You could also blame Xavier for a lot of things, Erik thought, but being daft was not among them. “Yes,” he replied, stuffing away said anorak in the wardrobe, closing the door after him. “Don’t you have work to do?”

“Actually, I’m done for today,” Xavier ran a hand through his thick, dark hair. “I realized just as you left that I, ah, was out of usable samples. Thought about going out alone, but,” He chuckled. “Thank the Lord I didn’t.”

Erik gave him a stern look. “Never go alone. You would have died,” he said, not sugarcoating the obvious truth.

Xavier scratched the side of his nose, eyes glittering above his knuckle.“And you would’ve killed me again for it, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course,” Erik said honestly, making Xavier laugh one of those laughs that shook something loose inside of Erik's chest.

With the blizzard distorting any in- or outcoming radio signals it wasn’t worth trying to contact anyone. So after a short workout routine, Erik took his time to cook up an early dinner. Xavier asked, as he had for the past two weeks, if he needed any help, but once dismissed, Erik heard the bathroom door open and shut. A minute later, the water heater chugged to life and the spray of water against tiles filtered out through the closed door.

Once he was sure he was alone, Erik let go of the knife, putting it down on the counter top. Then he closed his eyes, lifted it with his sense and let it chop up the onion on its own while he dropped the hard butter into the saucepan. The brightness of touching the metal was like taking a breath of Arctic air after spending a week in the polluted mess that was New York in summertime.

It was a relief to get these moments when he could use his powers freely again, without having to look over his shoulder to see if Xavier was watching. It wasn’t that Erik was afraid of him. If the kid had any objections, he knew he could scare him into submission. However, ever since he’d first thought about it, staring into the ceiling of his bedroom, there was a part of him that reasoned that he should hide it, just this once. It would be easier to let Xavier leave come April as ignorant as he’d arrived, rather than to make sure he didn’t say anything once he was finally gone.

And after all, it wasn’t as if Erik didn’t have experience hiding what he was from everyone.

With the onions diced and ready, Erik tossed them into the sizzling butter as opened the fridge door to fetch the last bit of the meat, all the while the ladle was stirring the soup and the knives chopping away at the carrots.

“Dr. Lehnsherr, where do you keep –”

Xavier stood in the doorway, fully dressed as he stared at the counter. And for a moment, that was all that happened. The knives kept on chopping,  the ladle kept on stirring, and the saltshaker hovered above the pot like it was attached to a little string.

Then Erik’s breath caught in his chest, and everything fell. All the items clattered to the counter or onto the floor with a thunderous sound, only to start vibrating as something hulking surged within him, large and animalistic as an instinct.

In three quick steps he’d crossed the room and slammed Xavier up against the wall.

His hand, around Xavier’s throat  – his slim, pale throat – held so tight he could feel him swallow. “You saw nothing,” Erik growled, staring into Xavier’s big eyes and his rapidly reddening cheeks. “Who sent you?”

Xavier let out a gurgling noise, blinking rapidly. “Did the damned university sent you to check on me?” Erik sneered, squeezing tighter. ”Well, you saw nothing, and you will tell no one.”

“Dr. Lehnsherr, I –” Xavier started, but when he failed to draw in his next breath, he stopped. His feet were barely touching the ground, and yet, he wasn’t clawing for his freedom even as Erik tightened his grip. “ _Erik_ ,” he forced out. The vibrations of the words struggled past his hand. “I didn’t know – ”

The thing inside of Erik roared louder than the blood in his ears. He gripped Xavier’s chin with his other hand, forcing him to look into his eyes. “ _Nothing._ Do you hear me?”

Xavier shook his head, grappling at Erik’s wrists as he gulped, trying to force air into his sealed off lungs. His feet kicked against the wall and his eyes were tearing, turning unfocused as his stiff, red lips formed words, wheezing as he begged Erik to let go, please let go I didn’t know –  

_Please, I would never tell, my friend –  I didn’t know, I am the same as you – You’re not alone –_

The words were loud and clear and too big for a mouth. Erik stumbled back as if burned, letting Xavier fall to the floor. He hadn’t thought that – his anger was too big, too thunderous to allow for anything else. And yet, the clear, voice had cut through as if spoken from all angles of the room at once.

Strong and clear and _British._

Erik shook his head, staring at Xavier, who was on the floor over, heaving for breath.

What had he done? How had he spoken without air? In his chest, Erik’s heart was beating double beat after double beat as he remained unable to tear his eyes from Xavier. Crumpled on the floor as he was, he looked like a little kid trying to hide in plain sight. Small. Defeated. Harmless. Yet –  Erik knew he couldn’t trust it. Because somehow, Xavier had managed to talk directly into his head. So more than a question of trust, it was a question of survival. What if Xavier was in there right now? If he was and he could speak in Erik’s head, could he read his thoughts too? Or something even more damaging.

“What did you do?”

Xavier’s wet eyes darted up at him. The red marks stood out starkly against the pale skin of his throat, and when he realized Erik was watching him, he looked down again. “Nothing,” he croaked, “I just – “

Everything was collapsing, his whole body trembling with it. Erik clenched his fists, and behind him the knife rattled. Xavier’s eyes widened almost comically, and had he been a predator, Erik knew he would’ve smelt a whiff of fear.

“I could kill you, right here and now. Toss you out and let the cold do the work,” he said, and Xavier did pale. “Or pull your blood out of your nose. So, answer my questions: did you control me?”

Xavier coughed, still panting. “What?”

“ _Did you_ – “ Erik’s voice strained, even though the ground was all but crumbling under his feet. “ – mess with my head?”

His voice rose with every word, and while Xavier didn’t flinch and held Erik’s gaze with his teary, blue ones, he did press his body a little closer to the wall. “No,” he said, his voice destroyed but surprisingly steady. Both of his hands were in his lap, palms turned up. “No, Erik. I didn’t. I wouldn’t do that.”

“Are you in there now?” Erik’s heart was seconds from beating right out of his chest.

“No,” Xavier shook his head. A breath passed his teeth, making a hissing sound.  “I’m not. I swear to you, I am not listening.”

Erik snorted, even as his world tilted even more. “So you do hear them?”

Flinching at the pain, Xavier swallowed, but then he nodded. It wasn’t a big movement, but it was enough of a defeat that Erik pressed on. There was still a tension in the air and he was still looming in over Xavier, fists clenched. But he wasn’t safe yet; he had to know.

“How long have you been snooping around?”

“I told you, I haven’t,” Xavier was starting to get desperate now, wide-eyed as he pressed his palms against the wall for support to pull himself to his feet. “I don’t know how to explain, but I shield off the best I can, I swear. I haven’t gone digging. But sometimes, you can’t keep it all out.”  

“Keep what out?” Erik said as the thing suddenly changed shape – going from a steady, familiar rage to a blinding sort of outright panic. Had he had Xavier in his mind from the first day, sieving through all of his thoughts, his memories, all his anger –

“Surface thoughts,” Xavier blurted out, staring back at Erik so pleadingly that Erik almost wanted to believe him. “Like – like what to have for dinner, how cold it is, your very first impression of me, your panic when the blizzard hit.” He sniffled, dragging the edge of his sweater over his mouth, coughing again. It sounded wet and torn. “I didn’t know what else to do. Nothing more. And that is only because I can’t shut it out. Not when you are so _bright_.”

That caught Erik off-guard, the charging rage halting to a stop. “What do you mean?”

Xavier straightened from his hunched over posture. “Compared to most, your consciousness is – “ he made a vague, spreading gesture with his hands, “ – like a lantern, compared to a flashlight. I did my best, as I realized very early on how much you respect your privacy, Erik, but some things slipped through.”

“What things?” Erik demanded, voice so hoarse he could have been gargling glass.

Xavier didn’t answer. Instead, he looked at Erik so softly, so gently, that Erik almost wanted to strangle him with the steel ladle still laying on the floor. But there was something that was stopping him, and not just the fact that Xavier would be missed by more than him, even if there were plenty of emergency excuses for his death that would be sufficient enough.

“What did you see?” he demanded again.

Xavier held up his hands, swallowing once. “Your anger,” he said, his eyes once again darting up to Erik’s face. And looking at him now, Erik could see a flicker of something urgent there as well. Nothing too foreign from his own wildness. “But do know that I’ve done my utmost to keep out. I was only keeping tabs not to anger you, I promise. I only wanted you to tolerate me, I swear.”

Something in the way Xavier said those last words, the defeat in them, made Erik feel a sharp sting inside of him. It was irrational, and it was timid, but before he could stop it, it was as if his anger deflated, leaving him eerily hollow. Yet, the space wasn’t empty. His insides were rolling and making a nausea slosh up against the back of his tongue.

He bit down on the taste of bile. “What else?” he asked through his teeth.

That seemed to catch Xavier off guard. He kept his gaze steady on Erik for a long moment,, uncertain, before he said, very slowly, “Is there something else?”

“If you’re telling the truth – ” Erik said as his esophagus pulled in a direction directly opposite that of his stomach. He knew he was gambling, but there was too much at stake not to make sure, with whatever means he had. “ – you should know that, shouldn’t you?”

For a long moment, Xavier just looked at him. His eyes were so intense, but now, Erik knew why. They could literally see into his head – peek in through his pupils and via the optical nerve, access the jumble of thoughts. It was a small, but significant mercy that hopefully, Xavier had just as much trouble sorting out everything as Erik himself had.

Then Xavier cleared his throat. “I know,” he started, his gaze losing some of its strength, “that you’re angry and... uncomfortable. With me staying here.” Xavier braced his elbows on the tabletop and let out a deep breath. “There are undercurrents. But no, I won’t ask. Not unless you want me to.”

“I don’t.” If there was one thing he was certain of, it was that. “And I want you to stay out.”

Xavier closed his eyes. “Yes,” he breathed. “Certainly.”

It was as close as Erik got apart from a complete privacy of his thoughts – but then Xavier tipped his head into his left hand. The light from the CFL landed on the column of his throat, and the fingermarks stood out so starkly, the edges already speckled in a way that Erik knew would darken, and come morning, be dark purple bruises that would sit there for days.

He nodded tightly. “That works.”

“Good,” Xavier breathed out, swallowing. “Thank you.”

For what felt like ages, none of them said anything. Outside, the blizzard howled around the station, unforgiving and insistent, and the sounds of it was still sinking into the walls so not even the soft light from the CFL and the clunking of the pipes could ward off the imminence of its presence. Slowly, Erik stood up from his chair and looked over at the kitchenette. In the heat of the moment, he’d at least had the mind to turn the gas off, and so it was just to pick up where he’d left off. There was something immensely soothing in the cutting and preparation of the meat that Erik didn’t care about how he could still feel Xavier’s eyes on him.

Once the meat was thrown into the pot, simmering away with the rest of the vegetables, Erik turned around again. Xavier was still sat where he’d left him, sitting on the very edge of the seat, body taught like a bowstring. However, there was also a sort of deadness to his eyes that made Erik’s skin crawl – even more so than the unnaturally intense stare he’d endured for the past weeks.

He cleared his throat. “I –” He didn’t know what to say, never having bothered enough to ever be in a resolved argument. Yet, something had to be done if they were to survive living in these quarters without suffocating. “Xavier, do you play chess?”

At that, Xavier seemed to hesitate for a moment, but then he nodded. “I do, yes. Why?”

“Do you want to play?”

Xavier nodded, mouth tilting into a smile as quick as it was gone.  “That would be – I’d love to, Erik.”

With that, Erik felt out the foldable chess set he’d brought out here ages ago from the bookshelf. The thin metal responded eagerly to his touch, floated through the air and into his hand. Using his hands, he undid the latch and let the miniature pieces fall onto the tabletop with a clatter. It was strange to see the black and grey pieces again, as he hadn’t played, not even against himself, for almost as long as he’d stayed here. There was that one time Moira had almost gotten caught in the blizzard and stayed two nights, but apart from that, he hadn’t touched it for way too long.

However, separating the pieces was easy enough with their different components and when he was done he picked one from each pile, forcing himself to look up again. To look at Xavier with his strange expression that had somehow caught somewhere between hesitation and poorly disguised wonder.

“Xavier.” Erik said, pointedly looking neither at his neck nor his eyes. “Black or white?”

“White, please,” Xavier said and Erik swiftly dropped the white king in his hand.

They spent a few minutes setting up the board, and then the game began. Erik had to think a little too long for his first moves, but it wasn’t too long before he got used to his strategies again. He had gone to the park during his first years in college to play against some of the silver foxes who could give Erik enough of a challenge that he actually improved and learnt how to think. Just as those elders back then, Xavier kept a more conservative technique, and so, Erik could tell that he was rather taken aback by the way he wasn’t above sacrificing his pawns without mercy.

After that, though, he got more offensive, forcing Erik to think twice before he made a move. They continued to dance around each other, Xavier pushing forward while Erik evaded and sneaked behind his structured defenses. All in all, it was an equal game, to the point where Erik stepped around with three pieces, all while trying to evade Xavier’s sole queen.

It looked as if he was losing, when Xavier then heaved a sigh and knocked his king over. 

To be perfectly honest, Erik had played like he always would have done, and Xavier had forced him to his limits in what could only be a legitimate effort. The way his brows had furrowed before every move, how his tongue had darted out just before he moved a piece. If those were all acting and not genuine tics, then he was worthy of an Oscar.

Then there was the fact that he hadn’t done anything violent. Erik admitted that he’d overreacted, but Charles had only spoken in his mind. He hadn’t made Erik let him go, he hadn’t taken control – he’d let Erik let him go, even though he must have feared for his life.

That made a greater difference than it should have.

Plucking his king from the board, Erik broke the silence. “You’ve played often.”

“Ah,” Xavier scratched the side of his nose. “Please, call me Charles. After that reveal, it’s only polite. And yes, I was actually in the Chess Club in high school.”

As he said it, Erik put the pieces back into the foldable board. “Wouldn’t have pegged you for the type,” he said. Charles looked as he’d been the safe option for the button-up girls to rest their crushes on. Attractive enough, but pretty in an innocuous way that meant nothing would ever come of it if something better came along.

Handing him the queen, Charles shrugged. ”I ran track too,” he said, folding his arms on top of the table, eyes trained on a whorl in the wood. “Though science was always my call, hence me being here now. Maybe because of what I can do,” he added.

“Why did you go into polar studies, and not neuropsychology then?” Erik didn’t realize what he had asked, but now that the panic had died down to a gentle simmer of vigilance, he took the chance, even if the words felt foreign in his mouth.

“I did, at first,” Charles started, leaning his chin in his hand. His voice was still worn. “Then, I came to the realization that I’d had enough of studying something I already know so intimately, but no one else will ever understand, even if I did try to explain.”

It did make sense, the same way it’d be frustrating for Erik to study geo-magnetism as his primary subject. “So why chose polar studies?”

“Not quite. Bio-optical oceanography,” he said. “And well, I had to study something to stay on campus.”  

There was clearly something more there, but now that Charles was looking at him, steady, Erik didn’t ask more.  “What’s your thesis on then?” he said instead.

“Arctic CDOM,” Charles’ now matte eyes gleamed just a bit brighter as he went on to explain. “Basically, I’m looking into how the color of the water underneath the pack ice affects the energy absorption and in turn the temperature of the water and how that in turn affects the melting of the pack ice.”

Erik listened as he studied Charles’ face. In truth, that matteness seemed to have enveloped him whole, down to his very skin. For all he seemed to be utterly mesmerized when Erik used his abilities, it was now as if someone had flipped a switch within him, turning off the lights and leaving his usually fluid movements stilted and oddly – muted. For a moment, Erik remembered one summer he’d spent at a charity summer camp, just after his abilities had made themselves known. They had still been fickle back then, and his control had been so sporadic, Edie had forbidden him to even believe that he had any. He had been angry, but on some level he’d understood and obediently kept his powers under wrap for the three weeks of camp. Even now, Erik recalled the pressing weight of keeping something so uncontrollable unmoving inside his chest.

The way it had pressed against his ribs and slowed him down as he had to think twice before every move.

In his head, he brought up that same feeling until it almost overwhelmed him, at the same time as he thought, _Charles, can you hear me?_ as loudly as he could.

Charles didn’t even flinch.

The sour taste grew around Erik’s molars. “Hey,” he said, suddenly so tired he could barely move his tongue.

Charles stopped in his explanation and looked directly at Erik. “Yes?”

He didn’t know how to word himself, only that something needed to be done. “You don’t have to become a zombie, Charles.”

“I beg you pardon?”

“Whatever it is you’re doing to stay out, just stop. You said you didn’t dig before. ” Erik said, his finger tapping against the tabletop as he watched Charles’ face. The I think that might have been true was left unsaid.

From behind them, a wave of slowly cooking meat wafted in. Charles’ marked throat bobbed once as he licked his lips, eyes flitting over Erik’s face as if looking for any and all signs of danger. Erik kept his mind focused on his decision.  After a moment, Charles’s expression changed, slowly, like a curtain was pulled from a window.

He smiled – a shy thing starting at one corner of his mouth and spreading until it was overtaking his face.

“I won’t.” His voice wasn’t strong, but it was steady. “I promise.”

“You better,” was the only thing Erik said, before he rose from the chair to check on the stew again. He felt Charles’ eyes on him the entire time.

A promise wasn’t something Erik had ever put any value in. But then and there, he did.

Simply because it had to be enough.

 

* * *

 

The blizzard moved on, in all its roaring glory, leaving behind nothing but a distorted landscape and heavy, grey white clouds that hung so low their weight was tangible on your mind. By now, the sun had tentatively started to come back, if only just teetering on the horizon before it dipped below it again. But it was enough to make the sky melt into the ground and create a view so smooth there was nothing to behold as you looked out the window.

When the mist pressed down like it did, it sometimes did push the temperature up, but it also made it utter madness to go out to the booth. While it made Erik antsy just thinking about how much data he missed to collect with his own eyes, he knew that to survive out here, it was sometimes better to simply refrain or reschedule. Either that, or you did something else that was necessary for survival – such as shoveling the roof.

Charles woke before him, and had already made oatmeal for both of them when he entered the kitchen.  Over a quiet breakfast, where neither of them really had the courage to look the other in the eyes, Erik cleared his throat as he put the bowl of oatmeal to the side.

“We’re going onto the roof today.”

Charles stopped with his spoon halfway to his mouth. “Oh?” he said, looking a bit unsure of what might come next.

“Blizzard dragged in a lot of snow. If we don’t shovel it off, we’ll wake up one day with a caved in roof.” The beams held for a lot, but it was never good to gamble.

Plucking Erik’s scraped bowl from the table, Charles stood up from the table. “Makes sense, “ he said as he put the two bowls in the sink, opening the tap and letting the pipes gurgle to life, “Is – do you want me to help you with that?”

For a moment, Erik thought of just what had happened yesterday. Even from here, in the light of the CFL and the small light from the barely there sun outside, the marks on Charles’ neck was still there and Erik wondered, how much force he’d actually used in order to leave those bruises on Charles’ neck. It wasn’t that he thought he’d been unreasonable – after all, he had always caused him more trouble than good, and there were those who’d put in money and effort into going after him even out here, should it come out.

However, he still felt the green black feeling slosh dangerously in his stomach as he watched the contrast on Charles’ skin. That, and the knowledge that Charles could have seen anything and everything in Erik’s mind, and yet, not even after yesterday, had he pulled away. If this farce of normality was hiding something else entirely, then there was something to be worried about. But while there was a tension between them, it wasn’t one charged with something inherently bad.

It rather felt like two destined ones, feeling each other out before one decided to take the first step of the journey.

Erik shook the thought out of his head before it could take root, before he raised his gaze from the tabletop again. “Two pair of hands work faster than one,” he said, shooting his chair back, the legs scraping against the linoleum. “Be ready in ten.”

As if he’d pushed a button, all the tension in Charles’ shoulders seemed to seep out of him. “Certainly,” he said, but it might as well have been a whoop of joy.

Erik nodded tightly as Charles brushed past him, clapping him on the shoulder as he went to bulk up. When his breath returned, he dressed as well, and they both head out into the whiteness and onto the flat roof of the station. The blizzard had indeed dragged in a lot of  snow, which due to the low temperature at least was light, but it still rose almost two feet above the usual roof level. Erik slugged a small path through it, then ordered Charles to fetch two shovels from the garage before he climbed up the ladder and they got to work.

“So,” Charles asked as he leaned against the shovel. “Where does it go?”

He’d piled up a good bit of snow already in the center of the roof. Erik hefted a load of snow over the edge. “Anywhere except on the generator or the door,” he said, and pointed towards the eastern side of the station and over his shoulder.

“Right,” Charles said and pulling the scarf a little tighter over his nose, he dug the shovel in and  shoved the whole pile over the edge where the bedroom was.

Soon enough, the rhythm of the shoveling got steady, and before long, more than half of the roof was cleared from snow. The mist was still as thick as ever, and almost half an hour in, it gently started to snow – thin flakes of snow falling towards the ground and very slowly covering the tiles in white again. Since it was so cold, nothing larger could hold together, but it also made the air sharp and painful to breathe.

Because of this, they stopped on the middle to catch their breath, lest it’d rip their lungs apart. Erik leant over against his shovel, looking out at the opaque whiteness around him. He grimaced. For all the snow was light – at least to the wet sludge of June – he hadn’t managed to avoid not pulling something again. His back twinged when he leant in, reminding him that he really wasn’t getting any younger, that was for sure.

By his feet, Charles squatted on the tiles, squinting out in the distance. “Have you tried putting a heat pad on it?“ he then said.

Startled, Erik looked down at him. His scarf had slipped down, leaving the tip of his nose red with cold. “On what?”

Charles sighed. “Your back.”

Erik opened his mouth, but Charles beat him to it. “I said I wouldn’t dig, and I haven’t, but I don’t like to see you in pain. Especially when I feel it too,” he said, smiling sadly, before he then stretched his arms out and fell back into the still lingering snow; his awful red overall shone brightly against the grey white mist.

It was hard to find the words. Erik cleared his throat, multiple times, but he came up empty every time, unable to express the sudden emotion that he felt.

“You’ll get hypothermia if you don’t get up,” he said after a moment, when Charles neither moved or said anything.

“I’ll get up soon,” Charles said, so quiet Erik had to strain his ears to hear it.

He started to move his arms and legs, just like the kids in the park had done during winter. Their little bodies had made the snow angels proportionate – wings as wide as their skirts. Charles was short enough for it to work, although the skirt became very wide. For a long time, Charles didn’t say anything. He just kept on moving, pushing the soft snow around and around and stared up into the white sky.

Then, he said, seemingly out of nowhere. “Thank you.”

Erik closed his eyes, felt the cold against his lips, “You’re welcome.”

 

 


	4. -32° Celsius

_"There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand."_

* * *

Once you knew what to look for, it wasn’t that hard to see that Charles could actually read minds.

Or rather, it wasn’t difficult to see that he had a heightened sense of people. The way he instantly knew to be quiet or how he never knocked into Erik, because he always seemed to have a sense of exactly where he was at all times. But Erik was also getting more and more sure of the fact that Charles hadn’t gone digging through his mind, either. He hadn’t pulled away – rather the opposite. Of that, Erik wasn’t entirely sure how he felt, but he couldn’t say he wholly minded, even though the change was jarring.

For the first few days, things had been pink, shiny and just a bit raw. They didn’t speak about the bruises, or anything else for that matter, but slowly it settled into something that wasn’t so different from the tentative truce they’d established right after Charles’ arrival. For one, the chess games after dinner settled in to their routine with ease. Afterwards, Charles would say he’d take over the dishes, but more and more often they did them together – saving both time and water while Charles talked about all and nothing – mostly about his sister and their shenanigans in college – while Erik listened, drying the things as Charles handed them to him.

The only thing that had really changed, was that now, when they went to bed, he knew what the warm presence in his mind was.

As February came to a close, Erik once again sat down with pen and paper to put together a shopping list. Charles was busy back in the den with some of his research; the light clinking of glass and rasp of pencil against paper was a natural installment in the soundscape of the station these days, and Erik was staring down the slip before him, checking it over one last time before he rose from the chair and went out in the den.

“Charles,” he said, loud enough to be heard through Charles’ earphones.

After a moment of writing, Charles spun around in his seat. “Yes?”

“Is there anything you need from the plane next month?” Erik asked, waving the slip of paper in the air.

Charles plucked the earphones out of his ears. “When it comes to food?” he asked and tucked a stubborn lock of hair behind his ear. Just as Erik, he shaved every other day, but he’d let his hair be and it was starting to show; the way the floppiness was making him look devastatingly young.  “Maybe some tea? Coffee in all its glory, but I do miss it a bit,” he said, grinning up at Erik. “And it doesn’t really go bad, does it?”

“Right,” Erik went over to his desk, jotting down ‘earl grey’ beneath ‘coffee grounds’ before putting the pen in the pen stand. “Then you should go get ready. The plane is scheduled to arrive at noon, when there’s still some light out.”

“That’s today?” For a second, Charles’ eyes widened considerably, before he looked back at Erik. “Has it been that long already?”

“Yes.” Folding the shopping list in two, Erik shrugged. “Time moves differently out here. Just get used to it.”

“Time is constant,” Charles claimed as he rose from his chair, leaving all of his things spread over the foldable table, making Erik’s fingers itch to tuck it all away.

Erik huffed out a laugh. “You’d think so, and the mere mortals are living it. But not out here.”

It was only possible to live out here for so long before you came to know that some things that seemed impossible, you simply had to accept. There might a logical, empirical explanation to it all, but until that was proven, it was just madness to try and keep the mystery from getting to you.

Charles just shook his head at that, before he disappeared into the bedroom to bulk up. The thermometer had stalled at -32 degrees, and the wind spinner beside it had been still, so Erik forewent the visor and simply tied a scarf tightly over his nose before he went out. When Charles showed up again, he was wearing a navy blue overall that Erik had to admit was a slight upgrade from the horrible red thing he usually wore.

“How much did you have to cash in for that?” Erik asked as he hooked the sled onto the back of the snowmobile. It had begun to snow again, light flakes floating from the sky to get stuck in the fur on his anorak.

“Admittedly, too much,” Charles said, lifting the empty crate with its empty containers and cans onto the sled and letting Erik tie it down with the flat hook straps. Erik remembered how they looked at him when he’d said he’d fix all of his clothes by himself and barely suppressed a snort. Behind him, Charles shook his head. “I know, I know. I could feel your disdain for it as soon as I stepped off the plane,” he then added, chuckling to himself.

“It’s ridiculous,” Erik said as he tightened the latch with his powers once more. “People have survived out here without it for centuries.”

“They indeed have.” In spite of his many layers, Charles hopped onto the snowmobile with ease. “But this works well enough.The only thing not top notch have to be the mittens, I guess.”

Tossing a look over his shoulder, Erik then straddled the vehicle as well. “We should get you some real mittens.With seal skin, so you don’t get frostbite,” he said pointedly, referring to the incident earlier that week which had almost left Charles three fingertips short.

“No it’s fine, I have – “ Charles started to say, but the rest of his sentence was drowned out by rumbling of the engine.

With the relatively warm temperature, the trip to the wharf took less than twenty minutes. The wind chill was low enough that Erik could actually use the accelerator without worrying about his face falling off and Charles was, just as the last time they’d took this trip, quiet and still behind him. This time around though, his presence was still very much in Erik’s sphere, but strangely, it didn’t matter so much anymore.

Even before they rolled over the last snowbank, Erik could feel the large, hulking presence of the Norseman in the wharf. As he came closer, Marie was already in the swing of stacking the different crates in their piles. She came stomping out of the plane as he dismounted the snowmobile and pulled the helmet from his head. Immediately, the cold attacked his cheeks, but nothing worse than he’d already felt.

“You’re rather late, Lehnsherr,” she said, as she picked one of the crates from the shortest pile and came to a stop right before him. “You sick or something?”

“How late am I?” Erik ignored her accusation, but took the crate as she handed it over to him.

She raised one eyebrow, and then blew a white-streaked lock out of her face. “Usually, you’re here ten minutes before I even land this thing.”

“I was held up,” Erik muttered at her, and Marie just grinned. “All the usual is in here?”

Marie nodded. “Indeed is,” she drawled. “Double batch of coffee, preserves, you name it. No cock-ups in the delivery this time around. But meat you gotta go get from Mrs. Ijiit, as usual.”

Erik put the crate down on the ground and pulled some of his bills from the pocket of the anorak, when Charles came up to them, holding the old crate with the recycling.

“Hello again, Marie,” he said as he handed it over to Marie with a smile. “I was distracting him, so it’s me you should blame on the tardiness.”

As she took the crate from Charles, Marie just looked between them for a moment – gaze staying a little longer on Erik’s face, until he stared back hard enough for her stick her chin out in defiance and grin up at him with sharp teeth.

“So you managed to get under this one’s skin, huh?” she said, and looked at Erik as if he was some kind of alien before she shook her head. “I’ll be damned.”

Charles seemed as if he was going to answer, but Erik made sure to beat him to it. “I’ve had him joined to my hip for a goddamned month, Marie,” he growled.

She raised an eyebrow, eyes flitting over Charles again. “What a hardship,” she said. Putting the recycle crate on the ground to start a new pile, she turned back to Erik again. “So, you have the new list or not?”

Erik held out the folded piece of paper towards her. She skimmed it, humming under her breath as she went over to the stack where her agenda was resting neatly on top.

As she filled in the requests, Charles helped him latch the crate down on the sled. They finished more quickly than if he’d been alone, but still they weren’t fast enough to avoid Moira and her two minions coming down the slope. The red lump with an overall matching Charles’ in both color and atrocity waved enthusiastically. When they reached the wharf, he pulled Charles in to a one-armed hug and immediately started talking. McCoy, stiff with cold as usual, waved at Erik, before he tapped Marie on the shoulder while Moira walked right up to him, a determination in her step.

Without any form of pretense, she then said. “So tell me, did he cut it?”

Erik glanced over where Charles and the other kid were talking animately, looking distinctly exuberant. “He’ll do,” he said. “He keeps to himself.”

It was the truth, as far as it was possible in the little station, yet it felt like a betrayal to say more than it. The reason for it, Erik didn’t want to analyze. But thankfully, Moira seemed to understand that as well, because she simply nodded.

“Good,” she said. “Because I would have made do with my threat otherwise. Or came visiting myself, without calling ahead.”

Erik shook his head. “Don’t say such horrible things, MacTaggert.”

At that, Moria laughed –  a short, sharp sound. “Don’t deny that you just miss me, Lehnsherr. We had a good week back then,” she said, grinning. “But I do believe it’s a blessing you didn’t end up with Cassidy though.”

Erik frowned. “How so?”

“He is,” Moira started, her eyes flickering to where Charles and Sean were still chatting avidly, before she marched on, “competent enough – the seals love him, even more so than me –  but he’s forever distracted. He’d driven you mad,” she concluded, but something in the way she said it, hinted that there was something more to it. “I got the impression Charles was... more dedicated.”

After what he’d heard, Erik didn’t know what to say. “He’s dedicated enough.”

Moira raised her eyebrows, uncannily similar to Marie’s from just a moment ago. “High praise, coming from you. He behaves, keeps to himself and likes cold things. So you get along well – he’s no Stryker?”

Erik shuddered . “No.”

“I guess anything is an upgrade after that,” she said, grimacing as well. Moira was the only one besides Erik who’d met his last grad student, and she shared his sentiment.

Charles soon seemed to be done gushing about seals and contamination or whatever other things he was into, and came strolling back with a huge grin on his face. His scarf had slipped down, and the smile was even more radiant than Erik remembered, the cold air making his eyes all the more blue.

“So,” he said, looking rather apologetic as he turned to Erik. “Should we head back home then?”

“No.” Erik shook his head, ignoring Moira’s curious look in the corner of his eye.  “We need to visit Mrs. Ijiit”

“For meat?” Moira cut in. “We were just heading up there ourselves. They took down a huge caribou buck a couple of nights ago, so the meat should be fresh, if she has any left.”

With a promise from Marie to keep an eye on the snowmobile, they took company up the small slope and into the community. With a whooping population of 1,014 people, it was a surprisingly vigorous town. There was no such thing as a road here, but rather a neat cluster of tall houses with steep angled roofs on stilts to keep them away from the permafrost in the ground. With the new light, there were people doing things outside, the cold not a bother to them in the slightest.

Some of the people, Erik knew, was very suspicious of them and had been so from the start. Moira, who lived within their community,  they’d accepted with an ease Erik could only admire them for. For Erik, things had taken longer, but he no longer got the evil eye when he ventured into town, especially not after he’d started buying meat from Mrs. Ijiit.

Yet, he didn’t blame them. He and Moira might be there to try and preserve their home, but they also hailed from the source for the devastation around them.

In the middle of the community, there was a school, a care centre, and between the community hall where the town council met once a month, and the grocery shop, lay Mrs. Ijiit’s little butchery. Moira stomped the snow of her boots as she climbed the few steps. Erik ushered Charles inside after she’d pulled the door open, jingling the doorbell.

The butcher shop was not bigger than one of the other houses in the little town, and it wasn’t optimal for letting people pass through with ease. The containers, reaching about waist level, were pressed tightly together, making it almost impossible to pass each other in one of the aisles. From the ceiling, seal skeletons hung from wires, and above the counter, a caribou head was mounted, its glassy eyes overlooking the little shop. It was so narrow it was almost claustrophobic, but somehow, there was also a bizarrely homemade feel to the cluttered space.

At the jingle of the doorbell, a short Inuit woman in a traditional, bulky wear showed up behind the counter, smiling gently at them so that her eyes disappeared into the creases of her old face.

“Good day, Miss Moira,” she said, her voice deep and calm as her breath made clouds in the uninsulated building.  “And you brought Mister Erik too. How lovely.”

Pulling his scarf down, Erik tilted his head down in acknowledgement. “Enoo.”

She sent him a smile that he knew he’d earned only after a long time and a repaired snowmobile. “Here to collect some meat, I assume?” she said, before her eyes caught on Charles, who was busy looking through some of the spices on the rack to the left of the counter. Her eyebrows raised slightly as she passed a glance at Erik, so subtle he nearly missed it.

Charles, who must have felt her curiosity spike, looked up, sending her one of his radiant smiles. “Hello. I guess I should introduce myself –  Charles Xavier. I’m staying with Dr. Lehnsherr at the moment,” he said, holding out his hand.

Mrs. Ijiit took it in both of hers, smiling again. “Welcome, Mr. Xavier. What brings you out here?”

“Same thing as these two – research,” Charles said, jerking his thumb in towards Moira and Erik.

“Keeps the world moving, doesn’t it?” Mrs. Ijiit said, as she turned around to pick a big cut of caribou meat from a box behind her.

“Wholly agree with you.” Charles was practically beaming, and Mrs. Ijiit chuckled.

As she packed the meat in the usual fashion, plastic in a brown paper bag, she looked over Charles again, something stirring in her small, dark and all-seeing eyes. “You are a very unusual spirit, Mister Xavier. Not many would choose this life, like Mister Erik and Miss Moira.”

“I take that as a compliment. It has been quite the adjustment, but I find I quite like it.” Charles said, before he smiled again. “It’s very quiet.”

An ambiguous expression flitted over Mrs. Ijiit’s features. “You’re wise to appreciate the silence. You handle living with Mister Erik well?”

It was odd being talked about as if he wasn’t even in the room again, Erik thought. Charles, obviously caught off guard, let out a short laugh, his eyes darting to Erik for a moment. “We manage.”

 _Relax, she’s just fascinated by fact that you seem to like me,_ he told Erik in his mind. _So drop the frown before she gets suspicious._

“Hmm,” was all Mrs. Ijiit said, before she finished up packaging the piece of meat in front of her. As she pushed it towards the edge of the counter, she dinged the bell by the register. “Miss Moira! Your shoulder cut!”

Moira pressed herself in between Charles and Erik at the desk, nodding politely as she took the brown paper bundle from Mrs. Ijiit’s hands. “Thank you, Enooyaq.”

“Anytime, Miss Moira.”

Sticking the package under her arm, Moira looked between them. “I’m heading over to the grocery store now. Any of you coming along?”

Charles smiled back at her, and suddenly, Erik felt there was nothing worse than leaving Charles alone with Mrs. Ijiit. In fact, there was an urgency within him to remove everyone and anyone still within earshot from the situation.

He cleared his throat. “Charles,” he said, rather sharply. “Go. We need more tran.”

Charles’ smile fell slightly, but after taking one look at Erik, he seemed to see something there. “Be right back then. Thank you, Mrs Ijiit.” Charles clapped Erik on the shoulder before he pulled up his scarf over his nose and disappeared out the door together with Moira.

With them gone, Erik went back to watch Enoo as she worked. She put the packed meat on the scale and rang up the total, while Erik pulled a few wrinkled bills from the pocket of his coat. But just as he was about to thank her and follow Charles back out to the cold, Mrs. Ijiit reached under the counter, and held out another bundle towards Erik. It was a brown paper bag, as most of the things were packed in nowadays.

“I sense he might need those,” she said, nodding her head towards the door.”Reckless, that one. You keep an eye out.”

Through an opening in the paper, an indisputable color and textured fabric peeked through.

“Mittens,” Erik then said, feeling slightly floaty. A part of him still wanted to ask how she knew, but he’d figured out a long time ago that it was simply better to roll with her eccentric, and very kind ways. “Enoo, I – .”

“There’s something bright within him. Just as there is with you,” Mrs. Ijiit said, her face indecipherable. She always spoke in statements; never questions. More than once, Erik had wondered if she too possessed the ability out of the ordinary. It would explain a few things. “Seal skin. Will last a life-time,” she added, smiling softly and tilting her head. “He will need them.”

“Yes,” Erik said, thinking back to a week ago, when Charles had almost gotten a frostbite, because he’d dipped the tip of his mitten in the water he was collecting. It had been a very near call, but they had gotten home in time.

“And an anorak will be ready next time you come around.”

At that, Erik startled. “I don’t think that will be needed,” he said, mouth dusty and dry. “He’s… he’s not staying.”

Mrs. Ijiit frowned, her hands already busy with something new. “He belongs here,” she said, her dark eyes trained on him. “He’s a bright one.”

Erik shook his head “No.” The words were suddenly sharp, cutting against his tongue, his teeth like the edges of a finger trap. “He’s going back. Back south. In April.”

She didn’t answer at first. Charles was nowhere in sight, still Erik felt strangely vulnerable.

Mrs. Ijiit started to pick with the coins still lingering on the counter. “No, no. He’ll be back. He’s too bright.” She shook her head, her eyes insurmountable. “You come pick that anorak up in a month. It’s for the best.”

There was a reason Erik was wearing his anorak still. “Will do,” he said, and tucked both of the packages in his backpack. There was simply no use arguing with her.

He bid her goodbye and stepped out on the steps, the air almost unchanged. For a moment he just stood there, looking out over the community and the small wharf, but then Moira and Charles came out from the grocery shop, holding some items in their hands, talking idly.

Erik made his way over and without any preamble he shoved the package in Charles’ free hand.

Stumbling back with the force, Charles turned it over, inspecting the glimpse of fur visible through the gap. “What is this?”

“Gift from Mrs. Ijiit,” Erik said, and then watched as Charles unwrapped the loose paper, and let out an airy laugh as he revealed the mittens.

He stroked the smooth surface with his thumb. “She really is a kind soul,” he then said, grinning up at Erik as he stuffed his old mittens in the pockets of his overall and pulled the new pair onto his hands. “They fit too!”

“Would be surprising if they didn’t,” was all Erik said to it, while something warm kindled in deep in his stomach. It was easily ignored, so as Charles turned to Moira to let her inspect his new acquirement, ignoring it was exactly what Erik did.

* * *

They arrived back at the station just in time for the sun to start setting again. Erik froze the meat in the heavily insulated freeze box just outside the door, and instead they had soup to clear out the root vegetables before they went bad. They ate in relative silence, and after the customary chess game – which Charles won by the skin of his teeth –  Erik took a trip out the booth before they went to bed.  

However, sleep didn’t come easily as it had for the past few days.

Staring into the ceiling of the bedroom, Charles’ breaths the only sound for miles, Erik found his thoughts rushing around in his head like a whirlwind. He had never thought he’d ever be comfortable with another human being in his space ever again, but somehow, he found that if he was forced to live with anyone, Charles wasn’t the worst choice. Still, it made something slosh in his stomach, black and uneasy when he found himself staring at the dark tousle of Charles’ hair when he changed out of his sweaters in the morning, or the way he pulled math jokes like they were actually supposed to be funny.

Yet, he couldn’t force himself to stop.

He was finally beginning to drift off, the pressure over his chest easing, when he was jerked right back to consciousness. In a rush, the world tilted, went out of focus as an energy strong enough to peel flesh from bone surged through him, and he shot out a hand to balance himself before he realized nothing had changed.

He was still at the station, flat on his back in bed, heart beating wildly in his chest.

Catching his breath, he gingerly sat up, dragging a hand over his face. His skin buzzed, low and insistent as he peeled off the woolen blanket he kept closest to his body under the other layers, but it didn’t help. He was flushed and a bit tight with some sort vaguely familiar tension.

On the other end of the room, Charles was sleeping soundly under a pile of blankets shielding him from the cold. On his way in, he’d snatched one of the blankets from the trunk in the den and now he snored lightly, mumbling something into the pillow as he shifted. Turned over as he was, the vulnerable skin of his neck glimpsed through the locks curling at his nape.

The dark light of the night illuminated him, made his pale skin glow in a violet hue.

Erik threw off the rest of his blankets and slung his legs over the edge, barely suppressing a hiss when the cold went right through his socks. Air quivered as he breathed – a clear sign the generator might have surrendered to the temperature –  and he quickly rose to his feet to avoid the chill to get a hold of his still sleep-loose limbs.

Keeping up the pace, Erik dressed in another two layers from his wardrobe before he approached Charles, shaking his shoulder. Charles didn’t even stir. Erik dug his fingers into the still warm muscle, shaking him hard enough to jostle the bed. “Charles, get up.”

With a groan, Charles turned over. His eyes were like slits as he scrunched his nose, his shoulders hunched up to his ears.

“What is it?” he said, slowly unfolding from his cocoon.

“I don’t know yet, so get up.”

Charles clipped his eyelids at him. Long lashes cast shadows over cheekbones, and Erik bent down to under the bed to drag Charles’ boots out. The lurking darkness provided a void to rest his eyes on as Charles slung his legs over the edge, and gasped.

“Hah! Good Lord, is it supposed to be this cold in here?”

“No. Just get dressed, Charles,” Erik replied,  halfway out the door, while Charles rolled out of bed, sauntering over to the chair where he’d dumped his clothes earlier. “And hurry up before you freeze solid.”

“Yes. We can’t have that,” Charles replied.

Due to the fire they’d stoked high last night, the den was blissfully warmer and Erik passed through it with ease. Digging through the wardrobe out in the hallway, Erik dressed and had just found one of his extra hats – knitted with tassels – when Charles had finally put on all of his ridiculous and colorful outerwear and come rustling out. For some reason, he managed to look good in that bright red overall that would’ve served well as a stoplight, but Erik shoved that thought out of his mind as soon as it struck.

Charles tilted his head. “So, what’s happened?”

“Generator’s probably out,” Erik muttered, pulling his seal skin anorak over his head. “It happens.” It was annoying to get up in the middle of the night, but bearable.

Charles groaned. “Was that really worth ripping me out of bed for?” he grumbled, but as Erik turned, he was met with a blinding smile.

“As I said, if you don’t want to freeze solid, then yes.” Erik said, and opened the door. “Get out.”

Shaking his head, Charles crossed the room, boots stomping across the heavily insulated floorboards. Erik pulled his scarf over his nose, grabbed his flashlight off the hook and then followed Charles outside into the night.

The transition from cold to colder was rather humane this time around, and Erik only needed a breath to get used to it as he trudged down the grooved stairs. On the last step, however, he almost walked into Charles, who’d stopped, and was staring at the sky.

Above them, the greenish, luminous glow of northern lights was blinding. Slowly moving, undulating like a sheet over the silhouetted mountains it seemed almost orphic. The cottonball silence was deafening – not even the wind or the accompanying snapping of flagpole wire could be heard through the rippling light.

Erik’s boots creaked in the snow as he came up beside Charles, whose quiet breaths made tendrils of mist bloom in the air.

“I’ve never –” Charles whispered, before breaking off, wordless.

He didn’t finish, but it didn’t matter. Erik had heard it all. How beautiful, how magnificent and how small the phenomenon of charged particles made you feel. The Inuit who held on to their animism said the northern lights had always been a source of mystery, one of transcendence. According to them, the lights were torches held in the hands of Spirits seeking the souls of those who have just died, to lead them over the abyss terminating the edge of the physical plane.

For once stunned, Charles tracked the sky, his eyes wide and mesmerized. His soft mouth had fallen open, and his delight was almost tangible in the diamond dusted air between them. Overhead, the lights flared when the activity suddenly spiked.The green waves adopted a carmine edge, which ate away at the light above, before it then quickly dissolved into violet curves moving across the sky. The other colors gave way for the green for a while, but then the violet came back, stronger and more vital than ever, until suddenly, a shy, rare blue light glimmered low on the impenetrable night sky.

Charles gasped again, a breathless laugh of wonder escaping his chest, lightning up in Erik’s mind as well, rosy and warm through the bitter, translucent chill.

And somehow, that sound in that moment, in the cold and deafening silence with the light show above, made a deep and inevitable glow settle to rest in Erik’s bones. It filled him so completely, ached and expanded behind his lungs like a blooming bruise that he found himself unable to breathe, mouth dry like tissue paper.

“Can you feel this?”

Erik tore his eyes away, looking up as well. “Feel what?” he asked. Somehow, the answer didn’t seem obvious.

Charles cocked his head at the sky, the ever-moving lights. “You told me you could feel lightning. I figured they must be similar.”

Erik felt his mouth twitch, realizing why the tension had felt so familiar. “Yes. It actually woke me up.”

“That’s fascinating.” Charles had stopped watching the sky, his eyes trained on Erik as the light played over his face.  “What – how does it feel?”

Charles’ eyes flickered to the ground, before they darted up again, flitting over Erik’s face as if he was looking at something he wasn’t sure he should believe, like a mirage in a desert after a day without water. As the moment dragged on, Erik felt himself getting antsy, something nervous stirring to life within him. The certain kind of vulnerability was so foreign, he almost felt as if he was standing on top of a building, looking down at the asphalt down below.

“I don’t know,” he started, simply to have something to say. “It’s buzzing. Like a charge under your skin. A sort of tightness.”

For some reason, Charles sent him a radiant grin, turning his face back towards the glowing sky. “I was rather worried before I applied to this position,” he then said, quietly as if not to disturb the silence around them, “not because of the cold or such, but mostly because of the silence. No buzzing minds, no constant distraction.”

He swallowed. Erik did too.

“Is it still?” he asked.

Charles blinked slowly, then he shook his head. “No, no. It’s rather lovely, actually. Very serene.” The corners of his eyes crinkled into a smile. “More so than I’d believed it would be. It’s very different than home.”

“You come from the city?”

Charles nodded. “Born and raised just outside of New York,” he said, huffing. “In a big house in Westchester. Not the best place to raise a telepath. I was convinced I was mad when it first started, you know? Hearing all those voices…”

He fell quiet.

Erik said, “None of that here.”

“No. Nothing,” Charles agreed. “Just you, and that’s all I need.”

Erik’s breath hitched in his throat, his chest snaring tight. All at once, he felt skinless, as if someone had just placed his hands on him, the friction so light but still burning. And so, he couldn’t stop the cough that wretch itself out of his chest.

“You’re very bright.” Charles added, a smile evident under the tightly wrapped scarf. “Makes up for almost anything else.”

“You’ve said. We – ” Erik started, feeling like his jaw had rusted shut. He paused. Began again. “The generator.”

Rolling his shoulders, he turned on his heel and started to walk back around the station, towards the garage. The northern lights were still playing overhead, and in his peripheral, Erik saw how Charles stayed back for a while, looked up at the sky one last time, before he followed Erik around the station to check on the generator.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out: brownie points for anyone who knows where the quotes in beginning of each chapter are from! 
> 
> Also, I got some amazing fanart made for me by [avictoriangirl](http://avictoriangirl.tumblr.com/), who was so nice and made me a [cover](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4536957)!
> 
> Holy moly, thanks a lot dear!


	5. -30° to -48° Celsius

“ _Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”_

* * *

 

As March cemented itself, the light had become a steady fixture in their lives again. While the rest of the world started to prepare for the incoming warmth, the Arctic did no such thing. Instead, the warmer winds brought some of the year’s worst storms with them in their wake. They showed no signs of letting up. Insistent and quivering, they lapped ominously over the windows, making the walls creak and sigh with the continuous tension.

If he was able to, Erik preferred to check the data in the weather booth with his own eyes. They talked about the human factor, but if you were the only one in the chain, it was the closest to correct you ever came. However, in times like this, when the windspeed was as inhumane as the cold itself, he was glad he had installed the little electronic reader in the weather booth. Two times a day, it would catalogue the data, and so Erik could get his data correct even during this horrible season.

By now, he was more than used to being holed up in the station for days on end. He stacked up on good books during the summer, dutifully keeping himself from reading them until he needed too. But even so, there was only so much to read – no matter how many times he reread his favourites –  and once he was out of interesting material, he’d figured that the only way he’d keep himself from going mad, was to move around with a purpose.

And so, blizzard day had become synonymous with laundry day.

In the afternoon, armed with only a flashlight and his magnetic sense, Erik defied Sila and went out to the garage to fetch the wash basin. In the shed, he took a few breaths before he pressed out again, hiding behind the basin as he dragged it inside.

Peeling of his outwear, he then slammed it down on the floor in the den, making Charles jump in his seat, nearly poking his eye out on his microscope.

“That was rather uncalled for,” he said, rubbing his forehead as he pulled his earbuds from his ears. He always wore them, the walkman spinning away by his elbow, when he wanted to really immerse himself in the material, but what he listened to, Erik didn’t know.

Not that he’d asked, because he wasn’t that invested.

Brushing some lingering snow from his hair, Erik shrugged. “Got the job done. Go get your clothes.”

Sliding off his stool, Charles raised an eyebrow. “What are you doing with them?”

Erik gave him a flat look. “Washing them.”

At that, his teasing smile dimmed ever so slightly as realization hit. “Oh. You really weren’t joking when you said we wash by hand.”

Erik stared at him. “Why would I? Do you see a washing machine around here?”

“Yes, no, why would I think such a thing?” Charles muttered under his breath, shaking his head. “Should I bring yours too?”

“Bring the whole hamper,” Erik said, and with a nod, Charles padded into the bedroom.

As he did, Erik went into the bathroom, filling one of the buckets stacked under the sink with hot water, dumping in a packet of washing powder, movements on autopilot. The big basin he filled with colder water from the shower. Tucking a bundle of clothesline under his arm, he then backed back out in the den, where Charles had returned with Erik’s hamper in one hand and an armful of sweaters in all of the rainbows colors under the other.

“How should I separate them?” Charles asked him, watching as Erik started stretching up the clothesline across the den.

“White and dark, woolen and not. Colors.”

Charles smiled. “Got it,” he said, and nodding, Erik ducked out in the kitchen to fetch the kitchen chairs.

When he returned, they placed the buckets between them and before long they were seated across from each other, dipping their dirty clothes into the cooling water. Earlier, Erik had stoked the fire, and now and the heat had swelled into every corner of the room, making them both shuck their sweaters just a few minutes in. The heat had made Charles’ cheeks and shoulders bloom a healthy red beneath his pale freckled skin, under which his muscles moved to the rhythm of dripping water and the sucking sound of soaking fabric.

Wiping a wrist over his brow, Charles grabbed another shirt from the pile and shoved it into the washing bucket with a sloshing sound. “You know, I had never washed clothes like this before.”

Erik wrought his woolen sweater out before he stood up and slung it over the rapidly filling clotheslines. “Not many do, these days,” he said, tugging at the stitches and tried to ignore the sweat gathering on his upper lip. To him, however, it was one of the first things Edie had taught him. Afterwards, he’d been immensely grateful for it, as it was the only way he’d managed to finally get the out garbage bag smell that had permeated his clothes and his very skin for such a long time.

Charles chuckled.  “I understand why. It takes its time, but I find it is rather calming, I have to say,” he said, and held up the thermal shirt he’d rinsed off. “I can only imagine how awful it must have been washing outside in ice water, but this is nice.”

Brushing his pruning hands on his trousers, Erik took the shirt with a shrug . “Novelty of the thing,” he said, making space on the line by sliding a pair of long johns tighter together. “Gets old quick.”

“Well, everything becomes a chore if you don’t change positions after a while.” Turning around, Erik suppressed a swallow, which only seemed to serve to make Charles grin. Even with it plastered on his ridiculous face, he looked all innocent as he held up another of his colorful sweaters. “Don’t you think?”

Blanking his mind, Erik snatched the sweater towards him. “If it’s not broken,” he said, jaw stiff and making his words rough around the edges, “Don’t fix it. Isn’t that what they say?”

Behind him, water splashed as Charles hummed. “I never said it needed fixing,” he then said, his voice tilted. “Only a slight change, to make the situation more … satisfying. More sustainable.”

Erik took a deep breath, feeling the heated air make its way into the very depths of his darkened lungs, before he tossed a quick glance over his shoulder. The marks around Charles’ throat had indeed darkened over the days that had followed, but then started to fade once again. However, they weren’t gone. Instead there were still three horizontal lines cutting a stark contrast against his skin as a reminder to why Erik didn’t do this.

Never had and never would.

Turning back, he said, “Change are for those not content with their current situation.”

Charles’ eyes were locked on his. “Change is essential to this world.”

“No,” Erik shook his head, tugging at the stitches of the sweater in front of him. “It’s not. Time is, but not change.”

There was a sound of a garment being tossed into the bucket. “It is. But without changing things,” Charles said, “there would be no progress. No moving on. No discoveries. No evolution.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure of that.” Erik barked out a sharp laugh, gritting his teeth as he looked out the window. The blizzard truly enveloped the station, unrelenting and suffocating as only the Arctic could be. “Some things stay constant for a reason. Too rapid a change, and they disappear or they are damaged beyond repair.”

He quickly looked over his shoulder again, discovering that the pile of clothes was now all gone. Without looking at Charles, he yanked the handle of the bucket towards him and went into the bathroom, letting the dirty water swirl down the drain in the sink. It sloshed against the metal, almost drowning out the sound of his thoughts blaring and rushing around in his head. But it didn’t drown out the sound of Charles rising from his chair and come padding across the floorboards, quiet but intent like a cat.

His eyes were like ants under Erik’s skin as he stopped in the doorway. “What is damaged?” Charles asked, eyes open and unguarded while his arms were crossed over his chest, making the fabric of his vest stretch.

Tipping the bucket on its head, Erik glanced at Charles through in the mirror. “This place. It can’t change,” he bit out.

“Isn’t it adapting already? With the polar-grizzly hybrids? I know it’s unique and perfect as it is, but everything will adapt. It will survive, even if this changes or – “

Erik gritted his teeth. “It shouldn’t have to.”

“I know,” Charles’ voice wasn’t loud, and yet, it made the piece in Erik’s chest throb. “But… what if it must? What if it’s too late to go back?”

“It doesn’t,” Erik said, spinning around to put the bucket back under the sink.  All around him, he could feel metal vibrating, calling to him and heating up, changing. “It has managed and sustained perfectly fine for so fucking long, existed for millennia and first now it’s warming up, because those selfish corporate assholes force it out of existence because they only care about short-term profits, while this place is melting right under  – shit, goddammit!”

As he’d spun around in the cramped space, he’d slammed the heel of his palm on the edge of the sink. The suddenly razor sharp metal edge cut deep into the flesh of his hand, slicing through skin and muscle in one long cut.

Hissing, he clenched his fist in an attempt to ease the pain and he made the mistake of looking up.

From the doorway, Charles was looking at him with an indecipherable expression. His mouth slightly open and his eyes expressing a complicated mix of honesty and pity or compassion that Erik had no idea how to read, but he felt as if he might choke on his own breath. Blood rushed in his ears, the world narrowing down to his heaving chest and the pulsing of the open cut as Charles uncrossed his arms and slowly took a step into the already cramped space.

This close, the presence of him was inescapable. The two prominent freckles on his nose became so much more apparent in the harsh fluorescent light, as did the ones sprayed over his bony, sturdy shoulders. Clenching his fists by his sides , ignoring the searing pain even as blood dripped onto the floor, Erik resisted the urge to step back when Charles held his gaze, steady and open, as he gently raised one hand to place it on Erik’s arm, right where elbow met upper arm, and sending a jolt of something hot through the whole of Erik’s body.

He felt as flayed open as his hand, his chest bursting open in a spray of blood and crumbled the only shelter he had left.

Charles held his gaze, then his quivering lips drew up in an unusually shaky smile.

“Let me have a look,” he said, his fingers drawing gently against the skin of Erik’s wrist. And without him thinking too much about it, he unfurled his hand, letting the blood drip through his fingers and splash onto the tiles beneath.

Quickly, and with a speed that spoke of unnerving habit, Charles took one of the towels of the rack and pressed it against Erik’s palm. Erik then watched, in trance as he fetched the first aid kit from under the sink, pressed a compress to the wound before he wound a strip of gauze around the area with efficient movements and swift fingers.

This close, Erik could sense the smell of him – the airy, almost inky smell of coffee and lead that went right to his head, the undercurrent of warm and sweet blood – and had him force himself to stare up into the ceiling tiles, swallowing harshly. It was such a display of weakness and loss of control to be turned into this– this–

Whatever it was, by so little.

As soon as that thought had passed through his mind, the grip on his wrist suddenly tightened. Immediately, Erik knew Charles had heard him. Maybe not the whole thought, but the sentiment, and that was bad enough.

He started to pull his hand from Charles’ grip, but Charles just gripped a little tighter. Not enough to stop Erik by brute force, but it was enough of a halt to make Erik look down and look into Charles’ eyes again.

For a long time, neither of them said anything. Charles’ squeezed his wrist, almost reassuringly, eyes brighter than ever.

“You know, it’s okay.”  

He said it so quietly and hoarse it was nearly drowned out by light clink of the fluorescent light. “Erik, I swear, it’s okay to get what you want.”  

Erik swallowed,  wanting desperately to close his eyes and enter his blessed headspace of silence, but just as unable to look away.

“I want to give it to you,” Charles said.

Not even as the hand on his arm slid upwards, over his shoulder, fingers curling against his neck, fleeting but steady like a buoy, holding his head gently above the water, helping him breathe as it curled around his nape, Charles’ thumb pressing gently against the cut of his jaw, brushing ever so lightly over his stubbled cheekbone, his fingers in Erik’ hair, did Erik find the strength to stop him. Their thighs brushed against each other, fabric rustling as Charles leaned even closer, so warm and alive, his other hand settling on Erik’s hip, light and too much.

“Will you give it to me?”

Erik couldn’t breathe. His chest was snared so tight, his face would have crumbled hadn’t Charles came even nearer –  now, he was so close, his head tilted back, gaze so intense, mouth open so his warm, shaky breath ghosted over Erik’s chin, damp and short, over his lips, made them tingle and throb with everything he hadn’t dared to feel for so long. The corner over Charles’ mouth curled, open and kind. Erik dug his fingers into his palm as Charles held still. It’d be so easy to just – to just move –  

The telephone let out a shrill, deafening ring.

Everything paused. In the living room, the resin made the fire snap. Charles opened his mouth, something on the verge of tumbling out.

Another of the rings sounded, shattering the moment completely. Erik finally gathered his thoughts and shouldered past him, stomping out in the kitchen and all but ripped the receiver of the wall with his hurt hand, still panting.

“What do you want?” he growled.

“Wow.”

On the other end of the line, Moira sounded distinctly unimpressed. “Someone woke on the wrong side today. ”

“It happens,” Erik shot back, blood still rushing in his ears and pulsing in his hand. He couldn’t hear anything from the bathroom. Nothing but the silence, the whine of the wind and the desperate beating of his heart. On his arms, the hairs were still standing up in some sort of disappointed anticipation.

“Daily, I gather,” Moira said back. “I told you – being alone makes you really cranky, Lehnsherr.”

“You didn’t answer my question. Get to the point, MacTaggert.”

Moira sighed deeply enough to empty her lungs. “Fine. I was just calling to see if you took the chance to lock that grad outside to get rid of him, or if he’s still inside in the warmth?”

Erik frowned. “I wouldn’t do it like that.”

“I couldn’t take the risk.” She sounded as if it was the only logical thing, and Erik couldn’t really disagree with her. Had Charles been half as stupid, he’d contemplated it. But now, there was something wrong with him, more wrong than it had ever been. The piece in his chest seemed to shift at that thought, so Erik dismissed it, even though it snared his chest, cutting of his breath for a second. “So how is Charles?”

There was a clatter and a small curse coming from inside the bathroom. Erik had to hold himself very tightly not to toss a glance over his shoulder. Instead, he tightened his grip on the receiver, the cut in his hand pulsing.  “He’s alive,” he said, making the word as curt as possible, lest the damn perceptive woman would read something into it, annoyingly bright as she was.

Still, Moira went quiet for a moment, before she returned. “Erik,” she said, serious, “What did you do?”

“I haven’t done anything” Erik hissed. “What makes you think I’ve done anything?”

“Honestly?” She made a noise in the back of his throat. “You sound wretched. Wait – did he do something?”

Erik closed his eyes. “No. It’s none of your business, so quit it or I’ll hang up.”

“Yeah, right.” she said. “Very mature. Here I’m calling because I need to cash in a favour with you, and you’re going to pass on that?”

“Favour?” Erik gritted his teeth. “You mean residence.”

“Yes. A seal cow that I’ve followed – Perpaluktok – seems to have kept herself along your shore for quite some time now,” Moira said, her voice flat. “I would like to confirm that. If we localize her quick, we might not have to stay over, but I thought I’d give you a head’s up.”

It wasn’t an anomaly to have Moira warn him that they might show. Usually, she and the grads didn’t run into any blizzards, and left Erik to his own devices, but she always made sure she called ahead. “Who are you bringing?”

“The new kid, Sean, and Hank if it’s not too cold. Do you have anything on that?”

In the den, Erik heard the bathroom door closing and light footsteps coming towards him. As they stopped, an intense gaze landed on the back of his head, quiet but all-seeing. He didn’t turn around. Shaking his head, he returned to the conversation. “It’s a raging storm outside, Moira. I haven’t got anything. And there’s only one extra bunk in here now.”

“They’ll sleep on the floor,” Moira said. “Besides, it’s only if the weather turns exceptionally bad. We’ll bring tents too.”

At least Moira knew her boundaries. “Fine,” he said, still curt, but no more than usual. “When do you arrive?”

“Next Wednesday. Might still be a chance she’ll circle back around here. That work for you?”

Erik cleared his throat. A distraction would serve them both well. “Yeah.”

“Good. We’ll maybe see you then.” With that, she swiftly hung up on him, the click on the other end of the line definitive.

A moment passed where the air quivered, shuddering like a race horse’s ribs. Then,

“Who was it?” Charles asked, his voice roaring in the silence.

Erik dragged a hand over his face before putting it down the kitchen table to support himself, suddenly bone-tired. The hairs on his arms lay flat. “Moira.”

“Dr. MacTaggert?”

“Yeah. She and her grads will head out here once the blizzard passes.” He paused, taking a breath to seal the fact in words. “They might stay over. If the weather’s bad.”

There was a rustle as Charles changed his stance. He might have swallowed. “Oh.”

“It’s one night. But she knows her boundaries.”

He didn’t hear Charles’ hitched breath as much as he felt it. “Erik, I – “

“No.” All at once, he felt so heavy, so tired, he could have dropped on spot. “Just don’t, Charles,” he said, not begging, but too close for comfort.

The silence ticked like a festering sore. Erik kept his eyes on the chaos still raging outside, convinced that if he only stayed dead still, he couldn’t be seen. It was easy to believe he was the only one there, alone in the station as he had been for all these years. He would have, if it hadn’t been for Charles’ breaths rippling through the air.

Just like fireflies, they swarmed towards him, shone through his eyelids no matter how he hard he tried to shut them out.

Then Charles sighed –  a light pressure on his mind, before it and the footsteps disappeared to the left, towards the bedroom.

“I’m going to bed.”

A moment later, that door closed as well.

Erik just stood in the kitchen, clutching the plastic of the landline so hard he felt as if it might crack.  Forcing himself to let go, he went into the den, stuffed to the brim with wet clothes and the too hot crackling of the fire. The very air seemed heavy, filled with a tension that was almost tangible as it snuck in under the skin and pressed down on all nerve-endings until they fell asleep, leaving him numb.

Passing by the door, Erik stopped for a moment, staring. He’d always found a calm in there, in the dark, and now, Charles had cut off the only sanctuary in this godforsaken station, and left him out here. He knew it would be easy. So easy to just press down on the handle, go inside and toss Charles out on his ear. And yet, Erik could only see himself staying the night out here, with the odour of drying wool in his nose and leaving an insipid taste in his mouth, instead of going inside and facing that expression in Charles’ eyes.

Falling down in the armchair, he pulled the ashtray towards him with a beckon of his finger. He lit a new cigarette, pulling the familiar, defiant curls of smoke into his lungs. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know what Charles had said wasn’t part truth. He did. There was empirical evidence for it. Yet, just because something was supposed to be accepted, didn’t make it so. Neither to others, but most importantly, not to him.

And simply because you ought to do something, didn’t mean you should.

He remembered the basement where he’d spent his fifteenth birthday. The cold damp walls, the thin mattress on the floor and the small, dirty windows providing little to no light even in the middle of summer. It had been relatively warm, but being a kid, he’d missed his own bed, back in the apartment that was no longer theirs. He’d been sent down there to nurse his bruises and broken arm, the man shouting as he pushed him inside and shoving something wooden under the handle, so that he wouldn’t get out.

All because he’d dropped a plate and dared to defend himself.

He took another drag of smoke, the red hot anger flaring to life under his skin after years of practiced indifference. In the wood stove, the fire moved, flickering a warm light into the dim room. The heavy clothes painted shadows on the walls, constant and all-surrounding.

There was no need to dwell. Dwelling led to thinking, and thinking lead to analyzing, and analyzing led to association with memories. Which never did you any good, in any situation.

Leaning forward, Erik picked up one of the books from his bookshelf, hands trembling. It was an old paperback he’d flipped through so many times, the back was on the verge of falling apart, and yet he always came back to it. Something in the dusty, used smell of the thin paper, the familiar rustling of these exact pages, always managed to push aside whatever was on his mind. It never failed, no matter how many times he’d read the exact same story, knowing every phrase well enough, he could almost hear Edie reading it aloud to him for the first time again.

 

 

> _St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17—_
> 
> _TO Mrs. Saville, England_
> 
> _You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings..._

* * *

 

He awoke to the grey light of dawn and the odd sensation of something draping over him, heavy and warm.  At first, he thought it might be lingering nicotine in his bloodstream, or maybe that it was all a dream and that in reality he had ventured outside in his sleep, and was slowly freezing to death. The ridiculousness of the thought soon became clear as he moved his body, stiff from his position and the cold, was slow to catch on, but the warm sensation was dissonating enough that he startled fully awake.

Through bleary eyes, he then caught the reason. Charles was leaning over him, draping one of the woolen blankets from the trunk over Erik, something soft over his features. His eyes were darkened with lack of sleep, his brows furrowed.

“What are you doing?” Erik asked, his voice still hoarse. The texture of the quilt was rough against his fingers.

Charles inhaled slowly. “It’s cold out here, now,” he said, and Erik knew he must have felt it too.

The tip of Erik’s nose was cold, but otherwise, the den was actually warmer than it was most mornings. It was warmer than the last time he’d fallen asleep out here, that was for certain. “I would’ve woken up on my own. You don’t have to babysit me.”

“Well, maybe, I didn’t want you to freeze solid,” Charles said, voice suddenly sharp, “simply because you are too stubborn an idiot to come inside last night and talk about this like adults.”

“You really want to do this now?” Erik said, his teeth feeling brittle like gravel. He didn’t want to speculate what would have happened, had he gone in last night. He didn’t want to speak. He wanted to stay quiet, not taint this anymore than he already had. Because tainted, it was. Like a wine stain on a white table cloth – one that you could leave be and rub with vinegar when it had dried, or keep pouring water on until everything was tinted in red.

But Charles was staring down at him so intently now, it felt like he might choke. “Yes. Yes, I do. Nothing good ever comes from running,” Charles said, and Erik snorted.

“How bloody noble of you,” he spit out. “And what exactly would have happened if I had stayed? What would have come of it, to you?”

That caused a pause. “I wouldn’t have minded.” Charles voice was quiet in the grey light filtering in the window. “I wouldn’t have minded at all. You have to understand, Erik, there’s nothing to be – “

“No. Why are you doing this?” Erik asked, his throat sore with disuse. “I say I don’t want to, and yet, you keep on pushing?” he added.

“Because this –” For a moment something akin to doubt flickered over Charles’ face. But then it passed, and his eyes locked with Erik’s again. “It doesn’t work, Erik. Even you have got to see that.”

Inside, something ugly was rising, and in another life, where things didn’t happened, Erik might have been able to hold the blackness back, instead of letting it seep out and stain his teeth. Now, he couldn’t look away from Charles’ face. The determined set of his jaw, his pulsing eyes had such a grip that –

“I’m not like that.”

“But you are,” Charles said, something final in his voice. ”I know you.”

There was a distinct smell of copper in the air when Erik drew a deep breath. “You don’t.”

Charles eyes didn’t waver. Instead he leaned in even closer, his eyes so vivid it was as if someone had turned on headlights inside his head. “I’m certainly not blind.”

“I’m not like that,” Erik repeated through his teeth, putting more force behind it, even though Charles was now so close the smell of him was overwhelming. Erik’s brain nearly went out. He was leaning in so close, there was nowhere to run but further and further into his own head – down into the basement with its grainy light and damp walls. Back to the days when he’d thought maybe Moira was the rule, rather than the exception. “So stop insisting I am. Just because you can look into my head doesn’t mean you get to decide.”

At last, Charles carefully composed, understanding farce seemed to crack. “Why are you so hellbent on torturing yourself?” he asked, his voice suddenly having a hint of desperation.

“I’m not torturing myself,” Erik bit out. “You do a good enough job of that.”

Charles looked as if he’d been slapped. “Liar,” he said, whispering. “You know that as well as I do, Erik. Please don’t lie.”

“So what?” Erik hissed, low and sharp. “It changes nothing.”

“No, it does.” Charles swallowed, his throat visibly bobbing. “You know that it does – the truth matters to you. That’s why – “ he broke off for a moment, bracing himself.  “I am giving you the truth. All I ask is that I get the same in return.”

The words shuddered in the air. Erik was trapped in the armchair as Charles leant his forehead against his. “Please. Just… acknowledge it. To yourself, at least. Keep quiet to me, but do say it, tell the truth. I won’t ask for more. Only that.”

The piece in Erik’s chest throbbed. It pulsed, sending a spark to the part of him that wanted to do just that. A part hidden underneath the layers he’d perfected over the years; pressed everything he knew together into something hard, smooth and indestructible, cemented it and then polished it to diamond standard perfection.

There had been nothing he’d been so sure of in his life. Until Charles had stepped off the plane and into his space. It’d be so easy, so simple to just… let him in a little further. And at the same time, utterly and completely impossible.

His yearning hands shook as he curled them into fists to not reach out. His hurt hand throbbed as he turned his head, studying the grey light filtering over the stained floorboards.

“No.”

Charles’s fingers tightened around his shoulder, dug into the muscle underneath. “Erik…”

Withstanding the impulse to shake his head, Erik closed his eyes. “Will you ever stop pushing? I’m not. Like you,” he gritted.

Charles let out a quiet breath, before his reassuring voice came back, his palm making circles over Erik’s collarbone. “Yes, you are. So, please, let yourself have this, Erik. For both our sakes’.”

Erik turned his head away, Charles’ breath ghosting over his neck rather than his too sensitive mouth.

“It won’t last,” he got out.

“Nothing does,” Charles said, low and understanding. “Nothing stays forever, Erik. And that’s fine.”

It was the same words as yesterday. He knew Charles felt that way, lived by it. And yet, it was, suddenly all too much.

In an instant, the red hot anger under his skin flared, scorching and inevitable.

“I don’t want this,” Erik gritted, but somehow, he still couldn’t force himself to shove Charles off him, out of his space and onto the floor. “Why won’t you get that into your head? If it doesn’t last, what’s the fucking point?” he spit out, the wildness sparking to life with him like a match.

“It wouldn’t be worthless,” Charles’ whole being was trembling now, his eyes red-rimmed and glistening. The next breath sounded like it was torn out of his chest by force, sucking, bloody and wet. “Just because it’s not forever, doesn’t mean it worthless. Nothing – nothing lasts, Erik. Nothing! Sometimes it’s for the better, sometimes it’s for the worse, but God, it always fluxes.” He leant in closer again. Erik couldn’t push him away. “Nothing is constant. Nothing is static. God knows I – ”

His hands dropped to his sides. “I am so willing to give this to you. To share this with you, for how short or long it might be. I feel so lucky I’ve met you. This might be the last chance, Erik. Because I don’t have to read your mind to see that you want this, and you are torturing us both for naught.”

The piece in his chest dug in so deep, stirring a yearning in his bones he’d pressed down on ever since he identified what it was. That it was useless.  And so, the truth somehow made it to the surface.

“You say it like it’s the truth.”

Charles simply stared at him. “Of course. It’s because, it is, Erik.”

The next words felt like ash in his mouth; selfish and childish, but still the damned, crumbling core of it all.

“And yet, you’re the one leaving me. That’s why you can say any of this.”

For a moment, only the wind around the station could be heard. Then, breaking the silence, Charles’ voice, broken and inaudible. “What?”

“Don’t you see it?” Erik said, his mouth curling into what he knew was a nasty smile. “You’ll leave, get on with whatever you have back home, and me? I’ll be left with nothing.”

“Erik, I’m not leaving of my own free will!” Charles raised his voice, eyes wide.

“Does that change anything?” Erik snorted, and pointed at him. “No, didn’t think so!”

Charles gaped at him, searching desperately for something to say. There was nothing, and he realized quickly enough for his face to twist into a grimace. “But it wouldn’t be nothing,” he stated. “It’s already something, Erik, and you know it as well as I do.”

“It’s a month, Charles! One damn month and it’ll change us both and you fucking know it!”

“You stubborn idiot – it has already happened! Have you even bothered to think that what if it’s worth it? That maybe, you’re the best damn thing that’s ever happened to me. That memories, they mean nothing to you?” Charles said, hands clenching at his sides as his gaze fell. “A short while of something good, isn’t worth sacrificing something for?”

Erik huffed, his eyes burning. “I came out here,” he said, feeling the instinct of fight raise its hackles, “for a reason.”

To finally be left alone. To remove himself from the world. From the brutality of it all, but also from the softer parts of it. Those parts that filled the hole in his chest; made it ache and tremble in fear every time he reached out, only to re-open time and time again, disappointment ripping through him until there was nothing but a dark glow left behind, only cured by everlasting, pressing silence.

And now Charles had broken it –  stomped on it and grounded it up to dust. Leaving it forever damaged, forever filled with a square peg in a round hole.

Charles paled, swallowing visibly. “So no one is ever going to be worth your solitude?” he asked, his voice low but surprisingly steady. “Ever?”

“No. It won’t. Because you – ” he pointed at Charles, ignoring the way his entire hand shook, his voice trembling, but he told himself it was in rage. “You ruined everything.”

“How? How did I ruin anything, Erik? How can you say it was a bad – ”

“How?” His whole body hurt as the word rung in the air. “What do you think – “

“No, listen to me. You don’t see it at all, do you?” Charles’ eyes were wide and wild, his lips pulling back from his teeth.

“See what?” Erik all but roared, his voice so loud it seemed to rip the room into a thousand pieces.

“How you can do this when it’s nothing but a lie!” Charles was shouting too now, his expression crumbling as he tugged at his own hair, eyes glistening dangerously. “You say you value truth, real, scientific empirical truth over anything on this earth, and yet, you are living nothing but a lie, Erik! This whole thing –  your precious little life, this precious little station –  is nothing but a delusion you built to protect yourself from all the human things you dare want! And then you try to blame me when you’re the one being such a bloody coward!”

On the last word, Charles’ voice cracked the tension in two. A ravine opened in its place, craggy and immensely deep. Looking down, it was endless, nothing but a void. Head spinning, Erik sprung out of the chair, the blanket falling off of his legs to crumble on the floor.

“You are so fucking naïve, Charles.”

With one deadly gaze at Charles’ fallen expression, he then stomped off to the hallway and vehemently started to pull his clothes out – thermal sets and sweaters tumbling out in a jumble as he rummaged through it all.

“Erik,” Charles said after him, reaching out a hand to land it on his shoulder. “I didn’t – if you’d only listen –”

Erik spun around, clutching his wrist tight. “Do not dare touch me,” he hissed and shoved Charles so hard he stumbled, back hitting the wall. If there had been any pictures on the wall, they would’ve rattled like bones.

“Erik– “ Charles said, the frustration clear in his shiny eyes now, but Erik just pulled the visor in front of his face, went past Charles and out the door; pushed passed him and pressed out into the mist, the meltdown within as scorching as the air was cold.

 


	6. -48° Celsius

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! Sorry about that cliffhanger (not really) and the delay (actually very very sorry about that). My internet is still deathly slow (they hit a cable while digging or something; whole neighbourhood is suffering) but at least it's running somewhat! *crosses fingers for it to work for two more weeks*
> 
> While I was gone, the sweetest darling [cheezybananaz](http://cheezybananaz.tumblr.com/) ([cheezybananaz](http://http://archiveofourown.org/users/cheezybananaz/works/)) made this amazingly wonderful and urgh _just beautiful_ fanart! Go check it out [here](http://cheezybananaz.tumblr.com/post/127396954605/a-moment-from-april-by-nextraordinaire-3-3-i/)!

“The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature.”

* * *

 

In the wake of the storm, the landscape had taken on a new shape.  Snowbanks had shifted like giants rolling in their graves, creating a new and unfamiliar horizon, all the while the mist had wrapped itself around the world, blending the border between sky and land in all its opaque whiteness. It was like looking through a glass of watered down milk; three feet in front of you was all you could see as you floated forwards through nothingness.

The thermometer had stopped at -48 degrees, but it somehow felt even colder against Erik’s face. Under the soles of his snow boots, the snow crunched. Almost like autumn leaves. Or seashells. The air, cold as it was, was easy to breathe, and yet, it was pressing in on his lungs like a snare. The walk to the booth had been the same, at the same time shorter and longer than it had ever been. As he’d put the notebook back in his pocket, the tables filled out with the glacial pace data, he’d found he couldn’t turn back. Instead, he’d ventured northwest, where the pull of the currents wanted him to go, but he never did.

Until now.

He marched and ploughed through the new snowbanks, focused on the whiteness and every little sound penetrating it – the low rumbles of snow falling off the distant mountains and rubble, the high-frequency, almost inaudible sound of the diamond-dusted air.

He didn’t know he’d far he walked, but it had to be far. For every step now, his knees ached with cold, and whenever he blinked, his lashes caught in each other for just a second to long before the world showed itself again. But against better judgement, Erik kept going. Had to. Until the anger had cooled down again. Until he knew he could look Charles in the eyes, steady and calm, and tell him he’d better go stay with Moira for the time being. That his time was over, that he had overstayed his welcome and boundaries and that he better leave.

After, finally, Erik would be back to his usual rhythm. No more breaths but his own filling the space, no more rasping of pencils against paper while he read, worked out or called Kitty. No more putrid coffee nor oatmeal. No, there would be nothing but blissful silence again. There was no cowardice in that at all.

However, he wasn’t dumb enough to not realize that he needed to have pushed everything treacherous deep beneath the surface to tell it without something vital breaking. Like with the radio, he needed to build up a resistance. An apathy and dullness which was his second nature.

As he filled his lungs with the cleansing air, he realized that he started to feel the cold even through his anorak. The temperature was far from the worst he’d experienced, but the humidity in the air made it sharper and more invasive. Without doubt he’d been out way passed the allotted hour – maybe even nearing two, with the way the light slanted in through the mist.

No more time to waste, then. Making sure the rifle was still steady on his back, Erik took a deep breath, steeling himself and started to head back.

Way too soon he could feel the hulking buzz of the station, with its antenna and the generator on the side. Through the mist, it seemed to almost shiver where it was veiled to invisibility, the windows like black holes in the facade. Before he opened the door, Erik stopped on the steps, an odd feeling settling in his stomach. Somehow, it felt as if he was missing something. And as much as it was true there was also a certain physicality to the feeling that made him even more uneasy as he opened the door with his powers and stepped inside.

As soon as the door closed behind him, the feeling multiplied. From the hallway, he could easily see into the other rooms – the glint of the kitchen counter, the worn floorboards of the den bathed in grey, dusty light from the window – and nothing had changed.

He knew it, right into his bones.

Not bothering with his boots, he tore off his scarf and half-ran into the den as the emptiness grew. The blanket Charles had draped over him was haphazardly stuffed into the open trunk, but there was a silence permeating the air. His breath echoing, Erik spun around and even before he reached it, he’d slammed the bedroom door wide open.

His bed was still made and empty.

The bed on the right hand side was too.

Crashing down on his knees, Erik crawled forward and looked in under the bunk on the right hand side. In the darkness there, where there usually was the pinprick lights of the snow spikes under Charles’ boots, there was now only a void. And just like that, it got harder to breathe.

He got up, heart beating fast in his chest, blood rushing dangerously in his ears. But where he’d usually be so full of rage he would have had trouble breathing, there was now nothing. Instead, he felt his feet walk back out and he got standing right in the middle of the den, filled so utterly to the brim that he’d gone numb.

He’d told Charles, countless of times, never to go out alone. That it was all right for Erik, because he was all but a human compass after all, but Charles should be extremely careful, especially when the mist dragged in.

It was suicide – even the Inuits said so.

For how long he stood there, limp and unable, Erik would never know. The only thing he did know was, that as he was standing there, he was, for the first time since he’d come home that disastrous afternoon and watched his mother fall to the floor, pale and cold and with her eyes closed, at a complete loss at what to do. He’d fallen down beside her, checking for her pulse, for any sign of life in her – in her blood, in the electrical pulses of her heart and brain –  until her hand has gone cold and stiff in his, leaving nothing behind.

Back then, he’d also stood in the doorway, seeing the sun settle behind the rooftops through their window. It felt only like minutes. Only once the apartment had been a black void he’d found the control over his body again and quietly turned around and gone to sleep.

In the kitchen, the clock ticked loudly, jarring the silence with each move of the second hand.

Somewhere during that indeterminable stretch of time, he unlatched the visor and found himself trying to find any sort of purchase in his mind, finding the most logical reaction to this, whether it was to stay and wait, call for ineffective help or run out again and look for something he didn’t even want to find.

Only that last part wasn’t true. A part of him had wanted, desperately, for Charles to be here, still. Maybe torn, definitely still upset, but still here –  filling the space with his mere being. It was irrational, missing something you wanted gone so desperately, and yet that was exactly what he did.

Missing something he wasn’t ever supposed to want. Not again.

Dragging in a long breath, expanding his lungs as far as they went, it felt as if it was the first breath of clean air.

_– rik?_

He jolted as if he’d been stabbed. The only reason he remained upright as the voice raced through his mind, weak and yet so strong it made his vision blur, was because he’d locked his knees.

To the air, Erik breathed, “Charles?”

_...where are you?_

“At the station.” Ignoring the awful distance in Charles’ voice, Erik instead tried to figure out where the voice had come from. But there was no way of knowing while Charles stayed silent. “Where are you?” he asked, hearing the own urgency in his voice, but trying to dismiss it the best he could. If there was any situation he needed the apathy, it would be now. “Are you out of your goddamned mind?”

There was a prolonged pause, but then Charles’ voice returned. _I don’t know?_

If Erik ever was doused in a bucket of ice water, this was how it’d feel. “You don’t know? Charles, what direction – “

 _Cold_.

“I know it’s fucking cold, Charles. Where are you?” Erik asked again, a taste of copper in his mouth.

_No… it’s warmer now._

“Charles. Have you stopped?” If there was anything that would make things easier, but also more dangerous, was if Charles had stopped. Walking kept the body warm, but it also meant that he’d be harder to find. Even for Erik.

_Shh. Hiding._

“Hiding? From what?”

_…polar bear?_

God no. Immediately, pictures of red against snow, torn limbs and blood, so much blood and the crunching of bones popped up on the inside of his eyelids. Nausea welled up against the back of his tongue, violent and nearly unstoppable.

“Keep still, Charles! Do not move, do you hear me?”

_I am fine, Erik… don't worry._

The distance in his voice was now more incoherent, fading at the edges. Before the command reached his mind, Erik was already out the door, scarf pulled tightly over his nose and heart beating wildly in his throat. The rifle was an anchor against his back.

“Which way did you go?” he barked.

_Don't know._

The voice was a lot quieter now, as if coming from behind fabric, muffled and unfinished. His pulse picking up, Erik tried his best to push passed the fainting ringing in his ears.

“Charles!” he shouted out loud, the volume tearing the silence to shreds. “Answer me: which direction did you go?”

For a long moment, there was nothing. The thick, cottonball silence that had always been a thing of comfort, was now making Erik’s heart beat harder in his chest as he pressed forward, facing south. Not that it made any difference: all directions were exactly the same.

White, opaque and impenetrable.

_… the … shore … ?_

“I’m on my way,” Erik said again, the pressure in his chest persisting like a pest. “Keep moving, but stay in the same spot, you hear me?”

Again, there was a delay. Then,  _… it’s burning._

This time when Charles spoke, the words were all but inaudible, and there was a quality to his voice that Erik had only heard one other time in his life. When he’d come out here on a one-week test run when he was a grad student, one of his teammates had gotten lost in the very same March mist. The kid had been found on time, still coherent, but there had been that same, reedy and yet reassured tone to his voice; as if he knew exactly what he was doing, even if he was peeling off his clothes in almost -50 degree cold.

Back then, Erik hadn’t felt this urgency. Nor had he been solely responsible for a person’s life other than his own.

Erik lengthened his steps, even though he knew it was futile. The magnetic north may have honed his powers to a level he could ever have dreamed of when the first established themselves, but it also made it all but impossible to focus on those small, pinpricks of metal when the the very earth was shuddering with currents so strong even a mere human could feel them charging through it.

Always Erik had thought it to be a blessing.

When almost a minute had passed with nothing from Charles, Erik stopped again and cupped his hands around his mouth. In every direction, the mist was veiling the surroundings, impenetrable.

“Charles!” he shouted, his voice bouncing around him but not going forward at all.

Closing his eyes, he pushed all impressions to the side, focusing only on that buzz, trying to separate them into different channels.

“Charles!”

No answer. Not even a rush of a presence in his head.

The mist pressed down, shrinking the world from all angles as Erik trudged forward, through the loose snowbanks, eyes darting everywhere. Everything was buzzing, the charge of the currents so incredibly loud and so close the air was all but vibrating. He blinked rapidly, trying to find the pull of the metal nearer the surface –

Suddenly, they were just there. Pinpricks of metal, grouped in five like flowers, not too far ahead. Without even registering it, he pushed forward, picking up his pace as he tore through the mist, eyes suddenly finding purchase on the smooth surroundings.

Catching on something red.

Running towards it, Erik fell down on his knees, the snow creaking as he reached down. His hand didn’t grab tinted snow, and so he pulled. The weight was cold and heavy, but soon he’d pulled Charles out of the snowbank he’d hidden himself in. He took a breath. The overall was whole, and there were no signs the bear had actually attacked Charles at all. He was unscathed, even though the scarf had somehow slid down, leaving the lower part of his face exposed to the cold.

But his eyes were closed; his lips blue.

“I told you to keep moving,” Erik chastised him, the words sounding distant and clogged even to his own ears as he shook Charles’ body lightly, holding his shoulders tight. “You’ll get frostbite otherwise. Or hypothermia.”

There was no answer.

“Charles.” The sour taste of panic in the back of his mouth grew as Charles’ eyes stayed closed, his body stiff whenever Erik moved him. Erik shook him again, the silence so unnerving the nausea increased. “Charles, come on.”

Charles didn’t even stir.

“Charles. Come on, Charles. It’s not funny.”

His mind was silent. Everything was silent, except for the creaking of snow. Feeling numb, Erik took a deep breath. They had to get back to the station. The wave of anxiety that was rushing through him, all but blocking his vision, was expected, but he had to push through it. Moving as if he was inside another person’s body, he moved his feet under himself before he took a steady grip on Charles’  – too cold, too stiff, too heavy – body and with a mighty effort, hitched him up over his shoulder in a fireman hold.

Just as every time Erik had looked at him, and watched him, Charles was a great deal heavier than he looked, and now Erik really felt it. Both of them had been outside for way too long – the darkness had now slowly begun creeping in, tinging the mist with grey and making shadows show up where none was supposed to be found.

With the dark, came the even more brutal cold. Already, Erik could feel it in his fingers; the incoming stiffness and weakness seeping into his muscles. Rearranging his grip on Charles body, he then closed his eyes, ignoring the currents of the earth and only focused on the familiar shape of the heavy-set station, with its antenna and generator to the side.

Then he started walking.

 

* * *

 

It didn’t go fast.

Erik’s body was cold, which made his muscles stiff and uncooperative. The snow was light enough it sometimes made him slip, almost dropping Charles’ body in the process. Everything was white, and the edge of his vision was tinted with a flickering red only brought on by bone-weary exhaustion.

When it felt as if his legs was about to give in, he finally felt the outline of the station near. He almost sobbed with relief and lengthened his stride the few inches he could spare. By the time Erik dragged his shaking, uncooperating legs up the grooved steps of the station, every breath hurt. The white world was spinning, madly and unrelenting, as if he was riding a roller coaster backwards and upside-down. On his back, Charles was a stiff, cold weight, and one of the few things that kept him on track.

That, and the tunnelvision he’d had for the station.

Using his fading powers, Erik pulled the door open and stumbled inside. It was hard to think, everything coming to him from the other side of a wall of glass, muffled and indistinguishable, but he still knew he needed to move slowly. He didn’t know why – that information was long gone – but he carefully marched forward, one hand braced on the wood panel as he staggered his way into the bedroom, dragging snow and cold in his wake.

As carefully as he could, he then lowered Charles, still fully clothed, into the bed

In the fading light of the short day, he looked so small and young. Fragile and fading, torn around the edges, not enough something. Always before, from the moment he’d stepped off that goddamned plane, he’d always filled up his designated space, sometimes more. Not always invasive, but persistently, like warmth itself on a chilly day.

Now, there was just this void – cold and dark and absent.

Still shivering so badly he could barely move his fingers, Erik managed to pull his mittens off. He deftly wrestled Charles out of the horrible overall, not thinking about how they had ended up here in the first place. He refused to acknowledge it as he stripped Charles down to his thermal set, before pulling the quilts over him, covering him from head to toe in every bit of fabric he could find.

When he could bear to tear his eyes from Charles’ waxy, bloodless cheeks, he stumbled out in the den again and as quickly as he could, stacked the wood stove high. He even fumbled with the matchsticks, too exhausted to conjure a spark with his ability alone. The wood was still chilled, but thanks to the bundle of tinder, it was soon catching, eating away at the logs. Hypnotic flames licked into it, dancing and emitting heat to warm his cold hands.

Erik stayed for a moment, before he got onto his feet again and headed out in the hallway, feet moving on their own.

As he then returned to the bedroom, his clothes disposed of in the wardrobe, Erik found himself halting on the doorstep, suddenly recalling. The fire was slowly, but steadily heating up the station to something of passable heat again, so he didn’t have to do it. And yet it was something ominous lurking in the increasing shadows.

One wrong move, one too reckless move and Charles’ heart could stop.

He remembered it now. It was a very real possibility, one that occurred once the body temperature dropped below 32 degrees. Since Charles had been out, looking for him for more than two hours, in almost -50 degree cold, it was a miracle he was still alive.

It was Charles’ own fault, running out like he’d had, and yet, Erik knew the piece in his chest would stir if he allowed himself to let the thoughts stray in that direction.

It would stir, and then deal the final blow to all he’d thought he’d needed.

Charles hadn’t moved at all. He simply lay on his side, just where Erik had left him mere minutes before. By now, the bedroom was illuminated by a charcoal light from the dying whiteness outside. The still lingering rays deepened the bruises under Charles’ eyes, made his skin look sallow and dead.

Lighting the kerosene lamp by his bedside, Erik pulled back the layers of blankets and quilts to gently pull Charles’ thermal set off him as well, leaving his skin more receptive to heat. There was something almost voyeuristic in an unpleasant way to undress him in this condition, reveal his freckled arms and shoulders, his strong legs, and Erik tried not to think about it as he folded the clothes, put them on the wooden chair Charles had appropriated as his wardrobe.

Erik swallowed as another shiver raced through him. Charles’ words from earlier still rung in his head, closer to becoming truth with every second that passed.

Setting his his jaw and cursing under his breath, Erik stripped off his remaining clothes with jerky movements.The cold gripped his skin like a too strong hand grinding the bones of his wrist, and he clutched his shoulders, glad to still be shivering. Quickly, lest the stiffness would set in, he turned back around and before he could change his mind again, he crawled under the covers of the bed, pulling Charles’ as close as possible towards him. He wound his arms around his back, pressed that still too cold face against the crook of his neck and made sure that every inch of that ice cold skin was touching some of Erik’s slightly warmer one.

He’d never allowed himself to think of anything like this. He wouldn’t as wishing such a scenario was madness. But now that he was holding Charles close, skin on skin, it felt positively surreal, and distant, like this all had never happened and once he got his consciousness back, he’d be back in the armchair, looking up at Charles’ vivid eyes and his tentative smile as he draped the blanket over his chilled body as if nothing had happened.

Outside the station, the silence settled together with the darkness. Against his palm was the steady, but faint beat of Charles’ still beating heart and Erik felt like he was about to cry.

 

* * *

 

From the bedside table, the low light from the kerosene lamp made the shadows in the room big and hulking. Omnipresent like animals, they stalked over the walls, moving in time with Erik’s breath and Charles’ still struggling heart.

The darkness made it impossible to tell how long time had passed since he’d first lied down beside Charles. Warmth had spread in the station, swelled and pressed itself out further than it had ever been; the usually icy bedroom was sweltering under the pile of blankets. It was, however, hard to tell if Charles had gotten warmer. His skin was at least not the waxy cold to the touch any longer, but it could simply be on the surface and not deeper down where it was really needed.

Erik had not dared move. Not even as the heat had made the linens stick to his skin had he found himself unable to let go of Charles. As if when he loosened his grip, Charles would fall into pieces and sail into the air, pulled upwards by the same force that pulled souls from the earth and into the northern lights.

His throat was dry from the warmth and he swallowed as he raked his hand through Charles’ hair. It had been damp when they first came in from the cold, but now it was dry, if a bit greasy under Erik’s hand. He’d always thought it had looked so thick and smooth, and he wasn’t disappointed when he’d first started carding through it, feeling the texture under his hands, still lively as always. And once he’d began, it wasn’t as if he could stop. After a while, Charles’ scalp had gotten almost warm under his fingers, and Erik had felt his eyes starting to droop with nothing but exhaustion and relief.

Sometime after that, he must have fallen asleep.

He peeled his eyes open, feeling worse than he had in years, something pressing down on his consciousness. There was a fatigue to his limbs, his head pounding and muscles aching like blood was trying to push through too narrow capillaries. Considering that he’d felt more okay just a few hours ago, Erik immediately turned his eyes from the ceiling beams.

From the other pillow, Charles was studying him. His eyes were nothing but narrow slivers of blue as he breathed slowly, savouring every breath into his lungs. The movement of his expanding chest made his lashes drag against the pillowcase with a slight rustle.

“Hi,” Erik said. He’d planned on it being light, but somehow the words caught in his throat, the weight of them making them hitch even as he swallowed loud enough to shatter not only the silence but something within.

Charles blinked.

_Hi._

A corner of his mouth quirked and Erik couldn’t help but return it, weak as it was. Then Charles made a horrible, rasping sound in his throat. Erik felt a rush of adrenaline up his legs, before a familiar feel touched his mind. His first response was, naturally, to tense, but then Charles spoke, whispering and nearly inaudible.

 _I’m afraid I won’t be able to talk just yet_ , he said, wistfully. _May I speak like this?_

He said it without thinking.  “Yes.”

For a moment, Charles said nothing. In the low light from the kerosene lamp, the slivers of blue in his eyes seemed to glimmer and shine on their own. Mythical and unreal. Then,

_Thank you._

It was impossible to hold that gaze. Erik let his eyes stray towards the ceiling as he swallowed. “You’re welcome.”

_You risked your life for me._

The last hours, the heavy weight of Charles on his back, his cold, waxy skin… “Don’t –” he forced out, the weight of the words pulling them back down his throat. “Don’t mention it.”

 _I have to_ , Charles’ mental voice was still rather quiet, but it held none of the incoherent confusion it had yesterday. Instead, it was a mellow sort of quiet; an intentional whisper to keep a moment unblemished.   _Not everyone would have risked their own life for me. Not like that. Not after that._

“You don’t survive up here if you don’t have each other’s back,” Erik said sternly, clenching his jaw so tight his teeth hurt. “It wasn’t even a choice.”

 _You know that’s not the whole truth._ Charles turned his head further into the pillow, his cold nose brushing against Erik’s shoulder. _We could both have died, Erik Lehnsherr._ That _is what this is about._

“I did what had to be done,” Erik said. “Nothing more to it.”

_Erik. You care for me. Whether or not you believe so, this shows that you do. I need no more, but you do care. Don’t lie to yourself as well._

What once would have been worse than pulling teeth to simply admit, even as Charles had tried to enunciate it with his gentle words and touches, was suddenly impossible to hide from. Even before the thought had formed on his tongue, Erik was already saying the words that never was supposed to hold such meaning again.

“I couldn’t leave you.”

A long, quiet and utterly relieved breath ghosted out from between Charles’ lips. It brushed, warm and damp over Erik’s shoulder. The hairs on his arms raised as he suppressed a shiver.

_I know. I couldn’t leave you either._

The way Charles said it, the utter conviction and belief, as if nothing could ever make it untrue, made something behind Erik’s eyes burn.

“It doesn’t mean I didn’t mean what I said. ” he said to the ceiling. His hand, acting on its own, curled loosely around Charles’ now warm shoulder. Erik swallowed. By now, Charles’ body was warm where it was pressed up against him. “You have one foot out, Charles. Don’t deny it.”

 _I never did._ Charles sounded wistful. _We don’t have to speak about it once I leave. Or after this. It can just be for this short while… it wasn’t supposed to be anything, but I cannot simply walk away from this, Erik. Because I will regret it to the end of my days if I don’t give us this._

He couldn’t even hide behind his own eyelids. Not with Charles so close, and not with the truth reverberating through every word he spoke. Erik had known it, deep inside, for quite some time now. How this whole farce had been eating away at his marrow until he was hollow as a bird, token resistance all but flushed out. He knew pursuing it would make it so much worse, and yet…

He’d have to amputate something to get away unscathed from it no matter what.

 _So dramatic, darling._ Charles brushed a still chilly hand along his arm. _We need to stop dancing around each other like this._

Erik held his breath. “You have to stop pushing,” he said.

_True. But you have to realize that I want you so badly I hardly know how to breathe._

“I don’t know what I can give you,” Erik said, so honest it physically hurt. “You have – you have a whole world at home.

Charles peeked up at him. _And what if I don’t want that?_ he sent as he pressed a little bit closer to Erik; his heartbeat ticking against Erik’s ribs. _What if what I want is just here?_

Erik smiled, self-deprecatingly. “You shouldn’t limit yourself.”

At that, he suddenly felt Charles smile against his skin, bright and radiant as always. In his mind, he could hear a soft chuckle.

 _That’s quite all right._ Charles said, but there was a wry to the one word that Erik could only shake his head. _I can wait until I’m stronger._

There was probably something he could have said then. Something that was almost a cliché, but would have drained the newly building tension from the moment. But anything that he came up with, either rang of falseness or another reminder of how doomed this was. Not in the sense that it’d destroy them, but rather that this compromise was built on a foundation already sinking, and every word was just another weight on this sinking ship.

It was ignoring the elephant in the room, but it was necessary for this to survive.

Suddenly, the already too hot blankets became so stifling, Erik couldn’t breathe.

“I should –”

Gently, he took Charles’ arm away from where it was resting on his chest and peeled off the covers of the sweltering place. The station was still warmer than usual, although the fire must be nearly burnt out now. He slipped out quickly, not to worsen Charles’ condition as he gathered his clothes from where he’d dropped them on the floor.

He’d just pulled on a thick sweater over his bare skin when he turned around to pick up his belt and caught Charles looking at him, peeking out from under the covers with one vibrant eye. It was curious enough, no malice at all, and yet Erik felt oddly nervous.

“What?” he asked, pulling the belt tight to keep his trousers in place. The metal of his buckle clinked. It was quiet for a moment as he finished tightening it up, but then the reply came.

_Just… taking my time to look at you._

“Haven’t you done it before?” Erik said, thinking back at how often he’d turned around after his work routine and caught Charles’ quickly redirected gaze in the corner of his eye.

 _Of course._ Charles didn’t waver now.   _But not with permission. And you are a rather lovely sight to rest one’s eyes on, darling._

For some odd reason, Erik felt his face go hot. He stood with his back towards Charles, but Charles must have felt the sentiment nonetheless, because he chuckled out loud. It was weak, and a little wheezing, but it was one of the nicest sounds Erik had ever heard. _Where are you going?_

“Making dinner.”

_Do you need –_

Charles was trying to sit up, but Erik gently but firmly pressed him back into the mattress. “No. You stay there.”

The look Charles gave him was curious, but he must have sensed Erik’s fear for the still lingering risk of heart failure, because he fell back onto the pillow. His hair – slightly too long by now, it would have to be cut soon – contrasted sharply against the white pillowcase. The light from the kerosene lamp was soft and dynamic enough it created shadows even there.

Unconsciously, Erik curled his fingers into Charles’ shoulder again, sitting down at the edge of his bed.

_Erik._

Unable to push back any sentiment whatsoever, Erik simply nodded, dropping his gaze.

_May I be selfish?_

At that, Erik snorted. “Aren’t you always?” he said, though where the words only a day ago might have been harsh, now came out as nothing worse than a whisper.

Charles turned his head on the pillow. _I know I am._

The cheeky bastard relished in it too. “So what do you want this time?” Erik asked, brushing his knuckles over Charles’ warm, freckled cheek.

Charles turned his cheek into his hand. _Stay here_.

“I can’t. We both need to eat, Charles,” Erik said. He’d skipped out on both breakfast and dinner, and it was starting to make itself known. His stomach felt like it was seconds away from starting to cramp. A very peculiar ticking stretched its way up to the back of his throat; one wrong move threatening to kick start a spiral in the entirely wrong direction.

On the pillow, Charles let out a little sigh. _It can’t wait?_

“No,” Erik said, shaking his head as he leaned away from Charles’ body, leaving the light to shine over him again. “You need fluids. I’ll be right back.”

_Then… will you kiss me before you go?_

It was selfish of him. Erik looked at him, the open look, before he pushed through his own hesitation. Because he could admit to himself now, that he wanted to. It wouldn’t help anything, but neither would trying to push it back inside. He brushed Charles’ fringe from his forehead. Then, after pressing a kiss to the smooth, freckled skin with his chapped lips, he rose from the bed, the springs protesting as he slipped out of the bedroom and into the kitchen.

Dinner was as simple as beans in molasses and some of the caribou meat fried off in a bit of butter, but the preparations were nonetheless calming. As the familiar motions, the cutting of the meat and the setting of the table took over his body, Erik tried to ease the way his mind was almost hyperventilating with chaos. It was far better than the cold fear that still resonated when he tilted his head a certain way, phantoms of sounds fleeting past before he became aware of the rushing hemoglobin just past the insulated wall of the cabin. After the third time, however, he took a deep breath and reeled his powers in, focusing them instead on the blade of the knife and the rhythmic thump it made against the wooden cutting board.

He was so immersed he didn't hear him until Charles suddenly cleared his throat from the doorway.

Erik flicked the gas off with a twist of his wrist, not trying to hide that he'd been startled. They were beyond that now, even if just a little bit. “I think I told you to stay in bed," he said without any heat.

“I did.” Charles' voice, still hoarse and ruined by the bout with the cold, was nonchalant. “But I needed to visit the bathroom. Then it smelled so delicious I couldn’t stand to wait."

If Charles felt as if he was strong enough to move, then there wasn’t much Erik could do about it. Not with that one.

So, “Sit down,” was all he said, taking the pot and the skillet from the stove, placing them in between them on the kitchen table.

Simply because he had made the short trek from the bedroom to the kitchen, didn’t mean Charles was unaffected. He’d put on two of his sweaters and swept a blanket over his shoulders, but when he took the ladle from the pot, there was a visible tremor in his arm. Erik didn’t comment on it. Instead, he loaded Charles’ plate for him before he tucked into his dinner, chasing away the emptiness in his stomach.

But when Charles reached out his hand, covering Erik’s on the table, he didn’t pull away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we'll be back with the next chapter on Friday 4th!


	7. -27° Celsius

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra update!

_“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”_

* * *

 

When the plates were scraped clean and the pot being put on the soak cycle in the sink, Charles tried standing up again. He was almost upright when something didn’t hold together and Erik spun around just in time to watch him fall right back onto the chair with a dull thump, quilt falling off one shoulder. Charles brushed his hair out of his eyes, meeting Erik’s gaze. “I hope it’s not too much of a bother for you to help me into bed again?” he said, voice soft as he smiled slightly. “My knees won’t do as I tell them.”

Erik couldn’t quite return it; the reality of what had unfolded just a bit too raw still. It was all quite discerning to see. How someone as resilient and persistent as Charles could crumble so quickly –  like a marionette without strings.

He dried his hands on the towel by his hip and went up to Charles’ side. “Arm up,” he said, motioning for Charles to drape his arm over his shoulder. The quilt and the sweaters blocked the heat that usually radiated from him, but as Erik wound his other arm around Charles’ waist and hauled him up, he could feel it flickering under all the fabric, strong and bright as always. For a moment, Erik almost felt guilty, having ever thought of Charles as anything close to weak.

Fingers pressed into his ribs, light but still hard enough to shake him out of his reverie. Charles was looking up at him, something somber over his features. “A penny for your thoughts?”

“What?”

“If you wonder how I know when you’re brooding,” Charles looked straight into Erik’s eyes, the light back in their depths, “it’s because you get really deep frown lines whenever you think of something not related to your research.”

“I do not,” Erik retorted, but before he could stop himself, he had brought his other hand up to his brow, as if to smooth something out. In the corner of his eye, Charles was trying very hard to to smile, failing miserably.

He didn’t say anything to it, however, and they started making their way – or more like Erik walking, and Charles stumbling after – towards the bedroom. Erik took care to not knock his sock-clad feet into the steep threshold of the bedroom by hooking his arm under his knees, just for a second. The kerosene lamp was still on, bathing the small room in warm colours. The covers and quilts on Charles’ bed were still pulled back, and it made it easy enough for Erik to lay him back into the divot he’d worn into the mattress during his stay. Charles pulled them back over himself, burrowing down until only his hair and eyes could be seen.

“If I ask you to _stay here_ now,” Erik wondered, “will you?” He still had to go back out and do the dishes, but he couldn’t make himself leave the room just yet; something invisible holding him there to hover by Charles’ side. Just in case.

When he realized Erik’s question hadn’t been rhetoric, Charles uncovered the lower half of his face.

“If I ask you to stay now, will you?” he asked, eyes steady on Erik’s face as he put an arm under his head; the other stretching out over the free space on top of the covers. His fingers, curled inwards towards his palm – the seal--skin mittens had saved him from acquiring any signs of frostbite – were relaxed and non-expecting. “I rather you didn’t sleep in the den tonight.”

Erik studied him for a long moment. To claim that he didn’t want to escape the cooling station for just a night would be to outright lie. But to want and to do were two separate things. He bit his cheek. To lie close to Charles to save him from death was a different than to sleep close to him, enveloped in the scent still on that pillow, because he –

Huffing out a short breath, which came out sounding more wistful and tired than he’d intended, he avert his gaze. “I have to take –”

“The dishes can wait, Erik. You know that. Hell, I’ll even do them myself tomorrow. Just – ” Charles closed his eyes and let out a long, slow breath through his nose, going quiet. “Nevermind.”

The only thing moving was the slight rise and fall of the the quilts following Charles’ slow, but steady and present breaths and the shadows from the lamp flickering on wood panel and Erik felt something loosen in his shoulders. It wasn’t by much, but it was somehow so much easier to pull his thick sweater over his head, turn the lamp off and sit down at the edge of the bed when Charles wasn’t looking at him with his sad, all-seeing eyes.

“It’s not easy,” he then said to the darkness. No moonlight tonight, as it was probably still hiding behind the clouds the mist had left behind.

“Hmm?”

Erik could tell he hadn’t opened his eyes yet, even though he still had his back towards the wall and Charles both. “This,” he clarified. Nothing more had to be said, really, painstakingly obvious as it was. Or rather, he wished that he didn’t have to say anything else, admit to anything more than he already had. Wringing his hands in his lap, they seemed as if they belonged to another person. Uncooperative, like two left hands instead of the right-left pair they were supposed to be. 

There was a slight rustle, and then Charles’ fingers brushed lightly down his spine, featherlight and fleeting. It sounded, for a moment, as if he was on the verge of saying something; something final. It stopped Erik from breathing, his ears picking up every soundbefore he heard Charles letting out another breath, followed by a hand curling around his elbow.

“Come to bed, Erik. Let’s just and only sleep.”

He was already halfway there, simply prolonging the inevitable that he – he wanted to. Looking down at his hands one last time, he undid his belt and peeled back the quilts to lie down under them. Underneath, it was blessedly warm, but not the stifling heat he remembered or had expected. Charles watched him, but his eyes were only like slits in the dark.

“Good night, Erik,” he said, and squeezed Erik’s hand under the covers before he turned over, leaving Erik to look at the tousled hair at the back of his head.  And in some flux of insanity, Erik reached out and stroked his hand over the locks, smoothing them down.

“Goodnight Charles,” he whispered back, and turned over as well, but not before Charles’ mind reached out, curling like a silver-blue band around his temple – warm and pleased.

* * *

 

Gradually, Charles got his strength back. The day after his near-death experience, he made it into the shower and back and by the weekend, he was essentially back to his usual exuberant self and ready to head out and collect another ice core for sample taking. Erik  didn’t let him out until Sunday, though, much to Charles’ grumbling. Up until now, he’d rarely been restless, but on Saturday evening, Erik caught him pacing in front of the window in the den like a caged tiger, and so they head out to the hole the following morning. When they got back, red-cheeked from the cold and the sun, Erik caught him smiling into his coffee in a manner that could only be described as fond. When he saw it, Erik didn’t bother to avert his gaze.

Wednesday also came around more quickly than either of them had anticipated; the monotonous rhythm of days somehow tricking the mind to believe things moved faster and slower in waves, leaving the perception warped.

What happened what was you did, nothing else.

They were having breakfast in an amiable silence – one of the things Erik appreciated when it came to Charles, was his ability to be quiet when he wanted to – when there was suddenly a knock on the door. Charles’ eyebrows flew to his hairline as Erik stood up from his chair and felt outside the door with his metal sense. He got the sense of not only one, but three different snowmobiles, two sleds and then, last but not least, three pair of snow boots with their spikes.

“They’re here.”

“Who?” Charles asked, before it dawned on him and he frowned. “Already?”

“Yes,” Erik said, and  without further ado he went out in the hallway, pulled a scarf from the wardrobe to wind around his face, before he pulled the door open.

On the grooved steps stood Moira , one hand poised to knock her rapid-fire knocks again. When she saw him, her eyes changed slightly; crow’s feet showing up at the corners. “Morning, Lehnsherr.”

“You’re early,” Erik replied, trying not to mind the chill gripping at his ankles. It was a bright, sunny day, but in the shadow of the station, the cold was unperturbed. Hastily, he all but pulled her in through the door and slammed it shut behind her. “What do you want?”

Pushing her snow goggles out of her face, she cut right to the chase. “We need help watching breathing holes. It seems my whole pod has migrated around the top and to here in preparation for the mating season. There’s another pod migrating from the east now, and they are mingling, so we need to put some more satellite tags on them before it’s too late.”

Erik gritted his teeth, trying to categorize all of the damned consequences, when Charles chose that moment to poke his head out of the kitchen. “All of them?” he said, his voice getting that enthusiastic edge he always did when talking about science. “Good morning, Dr. MacTaggert.”

Moira tipped her head in greeting, smiling as she pulled down her scarf from her mouth. “Good morning, Charles. And no, that'd be impossible, but at least two of the juveniles, and maybe another cow. I need to keep track of how the pod fluxes,” she said, eyes darting between both of them. “Can you help us out?”

Before Erik could say that no, they had other business to attend to, Charles’ face split into a impossible grin and his mind pushed something bubbly and rippling at Erik, something giddy that could only be excitement. “I don’t think we’ve much else to do,” he said, looking back at Moira. “I’m still analysing samples, so I’d love to help. It’s if Erik has something.”

It was true that he still had to take the morning trek out to the booth. When it wasn’t delayed by blizzards or on that memorable occasion when the door froze shut, it was a routine Erik hadn’t broken once since he’d come out here. Neither sickness nor darkness could stop him from trekking out and get his data. And yet, he couldn’t find any argument why he should say no. Not when Charles was looking at him with such unapologetic anticipation, it was almost contagious.

“No,” he said, shaking his head and looking back up at Moira. “I’m clear.”

Moira’s eyes darted between them, a frown quickly and almost undetachable appearing before it sunk back into her skin and she nodded once, a small smile playing at the corner of her mouth. “Perfect.” She pulled her scarf over her face again, “See you out in five,” she said, and then disappeared out the door.

The slam of the door sounded like defeat. Erik dragged his hands over his face just as Charles turned to him, hands in his pockets and a matching grin on his anger inducing lips. “Have you done it before?”

Erik stared out through the frosted glass in the door. “Done what?”

Charles’ mouth quirked. “Chased seals?”

Erik shook his head. “No.”

“So a first for us both then,” Charles patted Erik’s chest as he brushed past him, disappearing back into the bedroom to get his base layers, leaving Erik in the hallway with a lingering burn of a handprint on his skin.

Dressed in neither extreme nor light clothing, they then stepped out of the station – Erik locking it with his key for appearances sake – and then headed out north. For the end of March, it was a surprisingly warm day; sunlight shining down on the snow, making it sharper and endless as they ploughed through it, Erik in the driver’s seat keeping an eye on Cassidy’s back where he sat behind Moira. Charles was pressed up against his, his hands holding on to something behind him, but the physical presence of him was still noticeable.

They rode for about an hour until they came to a stop. In every direction, everything was spread out into infinity, sharp and unforgiving and white. Hopping off the snowmobile, Moira shielded her eyes and looked out over the space, before she clapped her hands.

“All right,” she said. “First off, we need to localize the breathing holes they mostly use. I have the coordinates from last time, so it should be in a hundred feet radius. So spread out.”

Nodding, each of them walked off in a star formation, sweeping their eyes over the ground. The sun’s insistent shine had started to melt the topmost layer of the snow, making it glisten and shine even more than it usually did. Erik felt it crunch under his boots as he walked slowly, eyes trained on the ground as he looked for a lump or any shift of loosened snow that could tell him a breathing hole was near.  

He had just turned to head back when he heard Cassidy’s shrill voice calling out maybe thirty metres from his spot. When he arrived, Charles appearing by his side almost instantly, McCoy was already on his knees, some form of contraption being shoved into the snow as he fiddled with the wires, twisting them around each other and attaching them to the contraption in question.

Having taken a detour by the snowmobiles to fetch equipment, Moira then stepped up to the hole. “Seen any sign of activity?” Moira said as she crouched by the opening, peering inside. It was recently used, only a thin layer of ice crusting the edges.

Sean shook his head. “Just before I called, it sorta rippled, but otherwise, no.”

“Well, if it continues like this, it should come soon enough,” Moira said, pointing towards the surface.  “See? This continuous movement means that there is something moving in the water further down. So we need to secure the net.”

To trap the seal on the ice, a few components were needed. First, a net was stretched around a rubber ring which could be pinched together, but would always spring back to its round shape if it wasn’t held down by force. The net was then placed above the breathing hole in such a fashion that if it wasn’t held back, it would spring back over the hole. A thin string held the net back, but on other side of it, McCoy installed a small contraption. When he pressed a button, the relay would burn through the string and the net would spring back, efficiently trapping the seal on the ice.

The setup required more digging and tinkering that Erik could ever have imagined, but when it was all set, they took the snowmobiles and drove a distance as to not make the seal suspicious. They took turns keeping an eye on the breathing hole through Moira’s and Erik’s binoculars, while they waited. At first it was quiet, only the sound of rustling whenever one of them moved, but after a while, Sean asked Moira if they had any food with them, and as Moira produced a small thermos of coffee, the conversation started to loosen up.

“So what is that you do?” Sean asked after a while, daring to look up at Erik for where he was seated on a seat pad by Moira’s feet. It was hard to tell what he wanted with how his eyes were shielded by his sunglasses. “MacTaggert says you’ve been here for as long as her, but you’re not Marine Bio?”

Erik squinted and looked out over the snow and the blueness of the sky. “No. Polar Meteorology. In-depth climate study to track the effects of air contamination.”

“So that’s why you came together!” Cassidy exclaimed, at the same time McCoy asked, “How long is that for?” as he lowered the binoculars to hand them back to Moira without a word. Today he was slightly less bundled up than all the other times Erik had seen him, but he was still the most dressed of them all. “Aren’t climate studies long term?”

“Thirty years,” Erik said, taking a sip of the coffee Moira had poured.

“By yourself?” When Erik just nodded, Sean whistled lowly. “Dedication.”

Erik shrugged. “You get used to it.”

Sean nodded, still wide-eyed. “True that. Still though.” He shook his head; red curls bouncing. “I’d go stir crazy.”

“Well, it’s rather extraordinary you’re as normal as you actually are, Erik,” Charles peeked up, and Erik felt himself getting a bit warm, but that might just have been from the sun.

At that, McCoy dared a small laugh. “Truth of the day, Charles,” Moira said, and it was only because it was Charles Erik let them laugh at his expense.

It was a good day for an excursion, with how the sun was shining so brightly. Erik could soon pull the scarf from his face and push the hood of his anorak back. Charles even got so brave he pulled down the zipper of his overall, tilting his head back like a cat, basking in the sun. The new, warmer light made the freckles on his nose all the more prominent, and for a moment he looked almost ethereal.

Then Moira, held up a hand, saying,  “Net!”

With a movement so quick it was almost uncanny, McCoy pressed the button on his transmitter and the net sprung down over the hole, trapping the seal on the ice.

Together, they grabbed the equipment and walked over to the ice. Spreading out after Moira’s direction, they gently herded the seal away from its breathing hole, until Moira came close enough to crouch and easily picked it up in her arms. The seal wriggled and  yelped wildly, making its distress and discontentment with the whole situation very apparent.

“Whoa, whoa calm down, sweetheart.” Moira quickly and with years of practice in her movements put the seal in the sled. “Sean, towel!”

“Yes, ma’am,” Sean said, holding it out for Moira to roll in the increasingly thrashing seal into a perfunctory swaddle.

She placed the seal down in the snow again and keeping the towel under it, she freed the seal somewhat. It looked very pitying as it flared its nostrils and looked up at all of them with its huge, liquid eyes.

“Erik, Charles, can you hold her while I fetch the tag?”

Erik sat down on his haunches, holding the seal down as Moira instructed – one hand on each of its flippers and holding them in to her body. Charles crouched beside him and spread out the backflipper was well as he could. As soon as Erik put his hands on her, the seal stopped her wriggling, only staring up at him quietly but intense. Erik stared back until it then lowered its head, sighing audibly as it wriggled a little more before going completely still. He looked up at Charles, who was smiling so wildly it was a wonder his face didn’t split in half as he chuckled to himself.

Moira gave them both an odd look. “Would you look at that.”

Looking up, Erik riveted his eyes on her. “What?”

Moira shook her head. “Nothing,” she said, but she was grinning through the whole tagging process and her easy manner wasn’t cut even when they released the seal back into the ocean, with the small transmitter attached to its backflipper.

The day continued on in the same fashion, until the sun began to creep towards the horizon. Night came not as quickly as it once had, but it still got dark too fast for them to stay out for too long. With the polar bears coming closer with the melting of the ice, Erik made sure that once the last of the seals – a slippery cow whom had been unnervingly swift on land – had been marked, they headed back to the station, reaching it just as the sun set beneath the horizon, painting the sky red.

“Get inside, quick,” Erik barked, not even sparing Moira or the others a look as they hurried past him and into the hallways of the station.

When Charles, Hank and Sean had disappeared into the den, their clothes tucked away in the closet, Erik started on his own layers. As he got his head out of the anorak, he turned to Moira where she was struggling out of her scarf. Just as him, she’d ditched the overall once Mrs. Ijiit had taken to her, and she threaded her own anorak on the hanger with practiced movements.

Erik brought out a hanger and did that same while Moira brushed a lock that gotten stuck in her mouth with the back of her hand. “We’ve got what we came for Lehnsherr. I won’t bother you more than necessary, trust me.”

“It was not my offer,” Erik told her, sharply. Moira just gave him a stern look over her shoulder.

“Well, we could probably have taken the trip back, but while Charles offered for us to stay the night, I mostly opted out of it because of the equipment. The new satellite readers aren’t as durable as the last ones,”  she said as she shoved her hands in the pockets of the wool trousers as Erik started walking towards the den. “I think I might have to send them back, actually.”

“What’s wrong with them?”

“The LCD displays,” Moira said drily.

Erik snorted, part amused and part angry.  “They seem to forget what we really need up here,” he said under his breath, thinking about who was in charge of sending equipment with liquid screens to the Arctic.

“Isn’t that the truth of the whole thing,” Moira said as she looked over to the couch in front of the woodstove, where Sean, Charles and Hank were already seated, talking excitedly amongst themselves. “You want a willing onion chopper?”

Over the years, Moira was one of the few people whom Erik had ever cooked with. For the short period he’d stayed at the Marine Biology Facility while his station was renovated, they’d cooked a few times and he found that they somehow managed it better than even when cooking alone.

“Sure,” Erik said, and with one last glance back, he followed her out in the small kitchen.

Being two, the gathering of supplies was quicker than usual and soon enough they were both chopping away – Moira with the onions, sniffling, Erik with the meat – when she cleared her throat again.

“So, how is Charles’ work coming along? Has he found any pattern in his samples?”

Erik knew his body stiffened. It was a minute move, but more than visible to a trained eye. Butter sizzled merrily, hissing when he tipped the meat into the skillet. “I wouldn’t know. Ask him yourself.”

Moira sent him a tired look from the corner of her eye. “Really? You don’t talk about it?”

“No.” Washing his bloody hands under the tap, Erik shrugged. “I’m sure he’ll gladly tell you all about it, so don’t come running to me when he doesn’t shut up.”

“You’ve suffered through it?” she said.

Since that one time so long ago, Erik had heard everything Charles said. He wasn’t sure he could keep calling it suffering though. But to Moira, he just said, “Too many times.”

She gave him another curious look, one that Erik didn’t like at all, before she turned back to her chopping. “It’s going to be quiet when he leaves, then?”

Erik didn’t look at her. “First plane in April,” he said, voice slightly hoarse.”Whenever that is.”

“It’s on the fifth,” Moira said, although her eyes never left him.“I know it’s not my business, but you usually keep track of that. Better than me, and you don’t even have a calender.”

Something in her voice, the crinkle between her eyes, made the hairs on his arms raise. “What do you mean?” he asked, voice sharp as he dried his hands on the dishtowel by her hip.

After moving back out here, he hadn’t seen much of her.  She was a human being, after all, and so, Erik despised her presence out of principle. But by being away so long, he’d fallen out with how to read the clues on her face. If you knew the warning signs, you could be prepared when Moira MacTaggert was about to unload one of her truths. Sharp, almost to the point of brutal, but always, always consistent and just so true.  

Her gaze didn’t break away from his face. “Oh God,” she said, “Erik. You l– ”

The breathlessness to her voice made the whole thing seem fragile and breakable. More out of reflex than anything else, Erik shook his head, ripping a wooden spoon from the earthen where he kept the utensils. “ _No._ ”

She’d put down the knife by now, her body angled towards him. “Did I unearth something hidden in that Egyptian river now?” she asked, softly.

“No,” Erik hissed, his teeth vibrating with the force of it.

As if sensing the same wave of fear, frustration and vulnerability – he’d finally identified that glowing, nauseating feeling in his stomach – Moira quickly raised her hands, clasping his arms, her elbows locked straight as she stared into his eyes with her strong, insurmountable eyes.

“I know you think you have everything under control,” she then said, her tone still calm and her hands acting like some sort of corrupted anchor he hadn’t known he needed. “I’m  not interfering with that. I’m just telling you to be careful, right?”

“Careful?” Unable to look at her, Erik felt his shoulders tighten even further. “You think I’ll hurt him? He takes plenty good care of that himself, I’ll have you know.”

“Yes. ” She shook her head minutely.  “And no. I mean with the both of you, you idiot. Whether you believe it or not, I don’t like seeing you getting hurt anymore than you already have been,” she added, nails digging into his arms.

The realization hit him like a bucket of cold water. “You know what?” he hissed. “You were right. My life is none of your damned business, MacTaggert.”

Moira’s jaw was carved from stone as she stared into his eyes. “Maybe I’ll have to make it my business when you – “

“Is everything all right in here?”

At the sound, Moira’s hands fell from his arms as they both spun towards the doorway. Charles was looking at them, a disapproving frown between his eyebrows. It wasn’t deep, but supported by the curl of worry around Erik’s left temple made it worse. He nodded once at him, holding Charles’ gaze for a moment before he blinked slowly.

Erik gave Moira a sharp look, which she returned just as hard and unrepentant, before he turned back to the browned meat.

“No, Charles,” Moira said, a reassuring smile audible even in her voice. “Everything’s fine – just a disagreement over onions.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely,” Moira assured him, the smile reaching her lips.

“All right then.” Charles didn’t sound at all convinced, but a moment later, his soft footsteps retreated back into the den.

Erik didn’t look up from the meat, although it was more than done. “Don’t you say anything,” he said.

“I wasn’t going to,” Moira said, calmly, as she picked up the knife again. The silence filled with the clacking of metal against wood. “But I meant what I said.”

Erik bit his teeth at that, and they finished up painlessly quick and then brought it all out to the living room. Pot and pan went on the low table, and then they squeezed into the sagging sofa and armchairs. Dinner was a longer and more strenuous affair than Erik was used to, the grads chatting away about everything and anything relating to either of their majors. Charles’ eyes seemed to all but glow with enthusiasm as he went on and on, gesturing so wildly, McCoy, who was sitting next to him, more than once had to dodge his wild spoon.

After taking care of the dishes, McCoy and Cassidy spread out their bedrolls in front of the wood stove – none of them complaining at all. Neither of them had asked about borrowing the shower either, which removed some of the damned pressure inside Erik’s head. Saving water was one of the constantly ticking worries in his head. He could in a time of crisis always bring in and boil snow on the stove before pouring it in the tank, but it was a chore he’d rather avoid if possible.

Charles, on the other hand, quietly disappeared into the bathroom for a rushed shower while Erik showed Moira where to put up her place on the uncomfortable cot.

She eyed it rather suspiciously, before she pressed her hand down on the worthless excuse of a mattress. It had been here even before the rest of the station was renovated, and since it was relatively functional, it had been left where it was.

“The springs are dead in this,” she said, grinning as she spread out her bedroll on it.

“There is the floor,” Erik reminded her, arms crossed tightly over his chest. The time Moira had stayed over before, she’d slept in Charles’ bed. Ordering her out in the living room was the thing Erik wanted to do, but it’d be suspicious since there was a bed left in here.

“Dead springs are always better than a wooden floor,” Moira said matter of factly, swiftly pulling her sweater over her hand, followed by her trousers until she was only in her thermal set and woolen socks. Sitting down to crawl under the covers she huffed out a breath.  “And it’s not like my bed back at the facility is much better.”

Erik started to undress too, laying his sweater out by the foot board, neatly folded. “Gotten that bad?”

“My shoulders don’t like me so much these days, that’s for sure,” she said, shrugging as she slipped a hair band from her wrist, twisting her hair into a quick bun at the base of her skull. “Might visit a chiropractor in June, because there is something wrong. My arm numbs out sometimes.”

“Only chance to do it,” Erik agreed, sitting down to unlace his boots. When he had slipped out of them, he turned to Moira again, where she was lying on her side, back towards him.

“MacTaggert,” he asked, making her turn her head. “You need the light?”

Her deep eyes glinted from the shadows as she shook her head. “No, it’s fine. Good night, Erik.”

“Night.”

He lay down and turning the light of kerosene lamp to nothing. The beams above held their familiar shape. Erik turned on his side, back to the wall and hands curled loosely under the blankets as he deepened his breathing and closed his eyes, trying not to think about how unfamiliar his own bed felt, after just shy of eleven years.

Soon enough, he could hear Moira’s long, even breaths in the room; a sign she was well and dead asleep on her uncomfortable cot. He opened his eyes, looked over the room, over the gulf of white moonlight, to Charles’ still made bed.

After everything, they had slept in Charles’ bed mostly; the sheets already formed after the both of them, and not for any other reason. It was simply because the mattress was stiffer, could hold more weight than Erik’s. Could hold them both as they lay close, not wrapped around each other for warmth, but face to face and sharing heat and closeness, studying each other without touching until their eyes fell closed and sleep came, slow and steady like the tide.

They had done it for a week, and now, Erik’s bed was cold with emptiness.

He was on the verge of slipping under, when the door creaked open, Charles quietly stepping inside. Since the first time, he’d learnt and now he always brought clothes with him into the bathroom. Before bed, it was just the thermal set, and he stuffed the other clothes over the chair he used as a wardrobe before he quickly laid down, pulling all his blankets up to his chin.

It was only then he turned his gaze, looking at Erik. _She is a heavy sleeper, right? Her mind is so calm._

Erik met his eyes head on, nodding minutely. A streak of moonlight cut over his cheek. “She sleeps like the dead, no matter who’s in the room or what they do,” he whispered into the darkness.

There was a beat of silence, then Charles answered. _Will you come here then?_

Even if he was rather used to it by now, Erik still startled. “What?”

 _Come here_ , Charles said again, reaching out a hand from under his mountain of blankets. The moonlight made his skin glimmer, highlighted the crude shadows around his bitten fingernails. _She won’t notice, I promise you._

Shaking his head, Erik looked back up into the ceiling beams, strong and resilient. Not now. Not here.

_If she wakes before me, I’ll keep us hidden. I promise you, Erik. No one has to know if you don’t want them to. But, we have to take every opportunity. So please._

It was playing with fire. He knew it, but –  Moira was a heavy sleeper when she wanted to. New places tended to unnerve him, subconsciously, and he’d tossed and turned every night for the week he’d stayed in the community. It was only the night when he’d woken up, drenched in sweat and a shout lingering just outside his mouth that Moira had woken up, a frown in her sharp face and something in the form of sympathy or solidarity or pity on her features.

So with one last glance at her sleeping form, Erik peeled back the covers and stumbled over to Charles’ bed. As if it was the most natural thing he’d done, he then curled up against him. Never wrapped around each other like Erik had been forced to do to keep Charles alive, barely even touching, but close enough to be breathing each other’s air.

After a moment, Charles reached up and curled his hand around Erik’s nape, his thumb pressed against Erik’s carotid, as if making sure he was still alive. Taking a deep breath, Erik tried to will himself to calm down. It took a few tries, but then, he sensed his heart slowly, slowly, accommodating to a slower rhythm, one he could count and keep up with. The scent of Charles, the feel of his skin and his warmth breaths ghosting over his chin slowed the whole world down and more often than not, Erik found himself wanting to reach out for something more.

Wanted to maybe, gently, touch that skin with another purpose than simply warming it from death. Maybe do something inherently soft and stroke his all-too calloused fingers over Charles’ cheek. Maybe, simply wanted press his lips to Charles’ red mouth, just to feel it, to taste him, to have something tangible to rely on once this was all over. But he could never force himself to do it. Even though Charles must have known. He must have, and he didn’t push again.

He deserved so much more, and yet, this vague and undecided thing was all Erik could ever give him.


	8. -15° Celsius

_“There is love in me the likes of which you've never seen."_

* * *

 

April arrived both faster and more imperceptibly than it ever had before. The March storms smoothed away to sun-filled days to give way for the increasing hours of light. Light which was reflecting off of the snow, re-doubling on and on itself until everything glistened and glimmered like a fairytale land. They had ventured south this time, not too far from the booth to take yet another ice core from the usual hole. For three months, since they had dug through the snow to the ice underneath, it had been covered by a tarpaulin. Now, the same tarpaulin lay rolled up on the hood of the snowmobile.

Charles took the saw from his backpack as he studied the last ice core they’d just extracted from the ice.

“It feels rather surreal,” he said as he started sawing discs from it. The strident noise of the metal against ice cut through the silence.

“What is?” Erik muttered, content just using a steel wire he heated with his powers. Whenever he got one disc out, Charles put in one of his sample holders and put it in his backpack.

“How much noise ice actually makes.”

Before Charles, ice and wind were the only sounds Erik had known. “You hear nothing else. Of course it’s loud.”

“I know,” Charles said, smiling as he put one of the discs in his backpack. “Still. When you grow up, you never consider ice to be loud, is all. Same with snow. It mutes things and ice is silent.”

Erik winded the wire a little tighter around his fingers to cut in again. “Nothing is really quiet. It can try to be, but sound never disappears.”

“Not even infra- and ultrasound?”

“Most of us aren’t built for it. You can never call anything quiet, it’s only that the soundwaves get too wide to pick up.”

“So it’ll reverberate until no one can hear it, but never disappear completely.” Charles rose from his knees, squinting towards the sun. “That’s quite the lovely thought,” he said, smiling brilliantly down at Erik. “That you leave a trace wherever you go in some way, even if no one can hear you.”

Erik didn’t know what to say. So instead he said nothing and handed over the last of his discs. As Charles sealed the last of the sample holders shut, he went over to start up the snowmobile, and nearly missed Charles letting out a small sigh as he looked down the hole in which he’d worked for this whole time. Erik didn’t say anything at the wistful look on Charles’ face as he then strapped the ice corer down on the sled together with the tarpaulin, before climbing onto the snowmobile.

“Home, then,” he said, and Erik revved the engine, leaving the deep well behind.

The ride back was mostly silent, apart from the light rumbling of the engine. Charles was holding on to him, his arms winded tight around his waist as they tipped over the snowbanks, the setting sun in their backs. Usually, Charles talked to him, either in the mind or with loud words, but now he was silent. In the beginning, Erik knew he would’ve appreciated it. Now, it only made him feel slightly hollow.

After stacking the wood stove, Erik started with dinner while Charles went out in the den to make sure the samples were all right. He was quiet as always, but now that Erik fought to listen, he could hear the light clinking of metal, the slight rustling as Charles shifted in his seat. He tossed a knob of butter into the pan, letting the sizzling drown out anything but itself. Using up the last of the root vegetables he’d gotten with the last batch, he was in the middle of chopping – knife moving on its own – when there was a light knocking on the door jamb.

“Do you need any help?”

The knife stopped in its movements, hovering above the board. All this time, Charles had asked to help out, but Erik had always refused, or designated him to set the table or anything mundane. And now, there was nothing he wanted more than to have Charles in his space.

“Yes,” Erik then said, motioning for the mountain of potatoes they’d failed to eat through fast enough. “These need peeling.”

Without another word, Charles picked up the peeler as Erik held it out to him, before he squeezed himself in between Erik and the kitchen table – so close, their elbows brushed every time any of them moved. Before he set in, Charles had rolled up the sleeves of his sweater to his elbows. His underarms were covered in freckles, and his sturdy wrists moved with grace as he peeled with a surprising speed for someone who’d been raised in a mansion.

“Where did you learn that?” Erik asked, dropping a potato in the water with a splash.

Charles’ halted in his motions for a second before he picked it up again. “The peeling?” he asked, smiling up at Erik. “I did go to college, darling. I am not insolent enough to not fend for my own food. This came naturally.”

He twisted his hand, smiling as he peeled off the last stripe of skin and tossed it into the waiting saucepan.

Picking up another, Erik took up his peeling again. “Still. You’re rather fast.”

“Thank you. Why do you ask?”

At that, Erik felt his face get slightly warm. It wasn’t a rush and probably not visible, but the fact that he’d stared at Charles’ wrists, thinking about the smooth, thin skin over his pulse point and how agile they were, still made it heat up.

So he said, “Nothing. It’s useful,” but with the way Charles smiled and leaned into him, something must have leaked through nonetheless.

“It is,” he said, and there was definitely something more to it than the literal sense. Erik didn’t mind.

Dinner was a quiet affair, both of them starved from the activity and keeping warm outside. They did the dishes just as before, side by side, but when they were about to retreat back for the night, Charles tilted his head and asked if they could take another round of chess.

They hadn’t played since the last storm, so Erik simply nodded. “Sure. Set it up.”

Taking the little set from the bookshelf, Charles separated all the pieces while Erik folded himself into the kitchen chair again. Then Charles took two pawns, and held them out.

“Black or white?”

Plucking the black pawn from Charles’ fingers, Erik spun the board towards him. “Don’t you always play white?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

Charles shrugged, but his eyes glinted. “True. But who knows, you might want to change it up,” he said, and moved a pawn forward.

Erik shook his head at that. “Not now.” He got a knight out and studied the board intently. “Let’s just play.”

The look Charles gave him would have been indecipherable, had it not been accompanied by a faint rush of affection and wistfulness. Erik lowered his gaze to the board, but the feeling, of course, persisted, even through the silence between them. They played as they always had – slow but intense, with no words passing between them. It was a vein of competition in the air, as it always was, but the longer the game faired, Erik started to feel as if it wasn’t just something that he’d normally feel. It wound tighter and tighter, until it was as if there was a physical pressure on his brain.

It had Erik losing his concentration, making a couple of amateur mistakes, so it was only a matter of time before  Charles had pushed him back into his own defense line. And it was then, when he plucked a threatened bishop from its place that Charles finally said what had quivered in the air for so long.

“Erik,” he started, softly,  “I know it might be too late, but I only want you to know that–  that if you asked me to stay, now, I would.”

Erik’s fingers gripped his bishop’s head so tightly he feared it might snap off. It got yet a little harder to breathe. “You said we shouldn’t talk about it,” he said, voice tense even to his own ears. “You promised we didn’t have to.”

“I know. But, ” He kept his eyes on Erik though, not once wavering down or to the side. “I think we should. ”

Pushing said bishop into its place, Erik shook his head. His heart was rushing in his chest, his neck throbbing with adrenalin.

Some of it must have leaked through, because Charles reached his hand over the table. “Erik,” he said, softly. “Erik. Please look at me. You only have to – ”

Dragging his hands over his face, he didn’t look at Charles. Not even between his fingers, as that was something that only small children did. Then, they thought they were hiding from their own parents, or someone they knew would never hurt them with intent, when in reality, as they got older, they realized they were only hiding from their own fear and humiliation.

“It won’t get us anywhere,” Erik said, once the silence had swelled into something bordering on grotesque. “You know it won’t. You have something back there – _a life_  – you have something unfinished and I – ”

“But does it hurt to try?” Charles interrupted.

Erik summoned all of his strength and met Charles’ pulsating gaze. “Sometimes, you leave a stone unturned, Charles. You know that too, don’t you?”

Charles lowered his eyes to the board. “Checkmate in four,” he said, so low it was barely a whisper.

Erik stared at the table, and saw the series of events and the breach behind his rook. As he tipped his king over, never tearing his eyes from Charles’ endless ones, he rose from the chair, knees creaking.

“I’m taking a shower. You’ll tuck this away?”

Charles held his gaze for a long moment, before dropping his eyes back to the battlefield. “Yes. I – I should probably start packing, too.”

“Yes,” Erik said stiffly. “You leave early tomorrow.”

Without looking back, he took a quick detour into the bedroom to fetch some clothes before he went into the bathroom, closing the door behind him with a click.

When he stepped under the weak spray, he was glad for how it drowned out all other sounds. He’d always been careful not waste water, keeping his showers as short as humanly possible. Yet, after he’d soaped down and rinsed himself off, he got standing in the steamed up cabin, finding he was unable to move. In here, with the unusual humid air, he could easily try to untangle the maelstrom in his head. From the beginning, he’d knew it would come to an end. It always did, but this was the first time he hadn’t felt utter relief before being alone again. Charles’ departure – he’d told Moira it’d be just another adjustment, and it wasn’t wholly a lie. Any arrival of any grad student would have been a nuisance and their departure would have been too. The difference was that it wouldn’t have been an adjustment, but it would have been a regression – a period in which Erik would have transitioned back into what he’d had always been.

That was impossible now.

Shaking his head lest he’d get caught up in a spiral he’d never see the end off, he stepped out of the shower. Toweling off his hair the best he could manage, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Where he’d only weeks before had seen the wildness his mother had always spoken of, there was not a trace. Instead, he looked as if he hadn’t slept in weeks. There were no dark circles under his eyes, but his eyes were so empty, Erik found he couldn’t keep looking. He slung his towel over his shoulder and turned his back to the mirror, killing the light.

As he came out from the shower, hair still slightly went despite the toweling, he stopped short on the doorstep.

Charles was in the middle of packing. On the bed, folded sweaters, fleeces and thermal sets were stacked in neat piles, his socks rolled into perfect bundles. His soap and razor was sitting on the bedside table, the light from Charles’ own kerosene lamp glinting off the blade.

This was it. Nothing more, and nothing less and they would never know how bright they could’ve burnt. It had always resided in the back of Erik’s mind, but for Charles’ sake, he’d tried to put it aside, just for this short time when they could be together. But now, as he watched him put his things into piles, hiding it from where it had spread out and nestled itself into Erik’s life, into his space, it all at once crashed down. Like a meteor in the middle of a village – horrible, accidental and a cruel turn of fate that was at the same time impossible not to be fascinated with.

There was no way to deny it now. Nowhere to hide from it. It flared through him like a tear in a paper, a hot feeling spreading from his core out to the very tips of his fingers; a burst of acidic lightning raging through his bones.

Charles pushed down his navy sweater, the one he’d worn on the first day here, into his backpack, before he looked up. “There you are,” he said. His fingers fiddled with the straps of it, his mouth curled into a tired, rather forced smile. “Took a rather long time. Usually, you’re just in and out.”

The truth was he’d only tried to delay the end. Only come back when Charles was done. “I felt like indulging,” he instead replied, leaning against the doorway.

“Indulging?” Charles smiled down at his hands, breathing out a chuckle. “I have rubbed off on you.”

He couldn’t deny it, so Erik said nothing. Charles tied the strings closed, sealing his backpack and sat down on the bed. The springs creaked.

“Did you know that I actually wasn’t sure if I ever wanted to come out here?” Charles then said said, when the silence became glutted. He shook his head. “It was madness, really. Me, I can’t stand the cold, normally, and confinement and isolation has never been something I’ve preferred. You’ve given me a taste of it though.”

Erik crossed his arms over his chest, holding himself together. “So what made you decide?” he asked. It couldn’t have been anything like Erik’s reasons, that was for certain.

“It’s quite childish, I admit. It was something my sister said to me, when we were younger. She was a bit pretentious, making up her own quotes. However, it’s truthful words nonetheless,” Charles said, leaning back on his hands and staring up into the ceiling beams. “‘It’s better to regret things you have done than things you haven’t’, because it’ll be easier to deal with the shame than with the uncertainty,” he said, smiling wistfully at Erik. “As one can be quenched, while the other is infinite.”

The kerosene lamp casted its shadows over the room: the dresser, the wooden chair in the corner which had been overridden with clothes, but now bare, the packed bags at the foot on the right hand side of the room. It made the space glow, soft and warm, and the light made Charles’ eyes glimmer, dark and so endlessly deep, Erik found it hard to breathe.

“Do you believe it that?” he asked, the words clogging his throat.

Charles’ throat bobbed as he swallowed. “Sometimes I do.”

And as he did, Erik had no other choice but to stare right into it, the darkness pouring out of Charles’ eyes or maybe it was his mind spreading out and flooding Erik’s with such blinding desire, longing and trembling, burning uncertainty that there was simply no other way to go but forward.

Come here. Please.

“Charles –” Erik started, his voice weak and hoarse even to his own ears, but all but roaring in the silence.

But then Charles had stood up from the bed and with three steps he’d crossed the distance. “I can’t leave, Erik. Not without knowing.”

Erik didn’t stop him as Charles tilted his head back, his eyes so impossibly wide.

“Stop denying yourself everything because you think you’re undeserving,” he murmured. “You are so far from it.”

“You are so selfish,” Erik said, before he closed his eyes, Charles’ warm breaths against his chapped lips the only warning before the distance was erased and they were kissing.

It had been ages, more than a decade, since Erik had touched another being like this. So gently and without any other intent than the touch itself. Charles was solid and real against him, his mouth just as soft as it looked and he tasted of salt, of warmth and of something else that Erik thought he’d found but lost and now had found again. As if having a mind on its own, he felt his hand winding into Charles’ hair, just as he had when he’d pulled him in from the cold, the other gripping his shoulder so tightly, pressing his short, strong and male body against his own.

Charles hummed low in his throat. Not pleased or even smug as Erik had feared, but rather something else. Something desperate and needy and lonely that reverberated inside Erik’s chest like a gong-gong, rattling his bones down to the marrow. He let his other hand slide into Charles’ hair too, gripping it so tightly it must have hurt, but still so unable to let go. They kissed and kissed, slowly at first, as the tension between them was brought down to a simmer. Charles’ hands smoothed over his shoulders and over his back, as if once he’d started touching, he couldn’t unlearn it, couldn’t stop and left Erik shivering with it all.

The kisses got more frantic, shorter and breathier. Teeth clanked together as if they were mere teenagers, but nothing could stop them as the pleasure started to mount, built upon the foundation of their frustration and fear, only to rise above it to something glowing and pulsing that ticked and ticked in time with an increasingly desperate pace.

When the air got thin, they eventually broke off for air. Charles pressed their foreheads together, still clinging to Erik as if he was afraid he would dissolve. Erik tightened his fingers in Charles’ hair, not able to open his eyes, all his focus on their shared breaths in the all-encompassing silence. Charles swallowed. For a moment, it seemed like he was starting to say something, but then it broke off. Erik opened his eyes and Charles’ hands travelled from his back to his chest, and ever so gently, pushed him backwards, towards the right wall.

Towards Charles’ bed.

As the back of his knees hit it and he, more out of reflex, sat down, a part of him hesitated. It wasn’t so much his mind, as it was his muscles and his body halting him for his own sake. It was true that everything had been building towards this. They might have been able to dodge it, or Erik might have, but another part, a much bigger part that had all to do with want and nothing with rationality, had hummed in tune with Charles’ words.

“Erik?”

Charles was looking down at him with wide, honest eyes, a question of consent hanging in the air. Erik swallowed down the still rebellious feelings inside, and he forced his body to move.

He nodded. Charles’ face opened – eyes and mouth both – and he leaned down, kissing Erik again.

All uncertainty tucked away, Erik let himself be swept away with the currents. As Charles crawled in over him, the shadows moved with him, but Erik didn’t register it. Instead, he let his hands slide down as Charles settled half on top of him, kissing away from his mouth and up his stubbled jawline, tasting his soft skin. Even if Charles would have asked him, Erik knew he never would have been able to spell out just what he wanted to do. Just how he wanted to touch Charles, despite never knowing how.

So when Charles pushed, he simply let his legs spread just a fraction of an inch as Charles stretched out on top of him, his hips nestled in-between Erik’s thighs, pressing down on his growing hardness. Erik breathed into Charles’ mouth, pressing up to increase the pressure, get them closer together. Clinging to him, Charles grinded down, moving with purpose punctuated by their stuttering breath. His eyes were blown wide as he stared into Erik’s eyes, holding his gaze as his grip on Erik’s hip tightened.

The inevitability of the moment was present like smoke in the air, but still Erik nodded, swallowing as Charles’ cold hand then travelled to his hip, in under his shirt before he pressed his palm flat against Erik’s fly. It wasn’t much pressure, but nonetheless Erik felt his cheeks flush, and he had to bite back a quiet moan as Charles did quick work of his zipper and pushed his hand inside, finally making skin touch, sparking something behind Erik’s eyelids.

He reached for Charles’ hair with one hand as Charles stroked him more firmly, tracing his fingertips around the head, his short, bitten nails scraping gently against the circumcision scar. Erik could hardly breathe, breath stuttering in his throat as he bucked upwards, towards Charles. Charles moaned, his lips pressed against Erik’s neck, right by his carotid, as he rutted against Erik’s thigh, hard and glorious. Bold by the warm, sweet blood pulsing inside of him, driven by his nuclear-powered heart, Erik let a hand stray to the small of Charles’ back. Once he had Charles flush against him, a solid, panting weight, he closed his eyes and stuck his hand inside Charles’ trousers as well.

Charles was hard, nearly pulsing against Erik’s palm, and so he couldn’t help but grip him just this side of too tight. Caught off guard, Charles gasped, the hand he’d tangled in Erik’s hair tightening as his eyes locked on Erik’s again, his mouth open and so soft, glistening in the low light and Erik pulled him down for another kiss

In mutual, wordless understanding, they then wriggled their trousers down just far enough to let them close around them both. It was rough with only skin, precome and spit to soothe the way, but it was too late to bring in anything else as they moved together, clinging to each other while  humid breaths passed in the nearly nonexistent distance between their mouths. Their hands moved – Charles’ holding tight, rubbing the pad of his thumb, spreading precome over the heads, enhancing everything, almost too much, as Erik simply held their cocks together, unable to do much more – faster and faster, the tempo just as desperate as the small, keening sounds escaping between Charles’ teeth as his mind spread out and Erik felt a familiar rumbling in his core – that telltale tightening, the constriction at the base of his spine, in his balls, reaching for the tipping point like a rubber band.

Before, Erik had never shared a climax with anyone. When he’d passed his horny phase of puberty, which had been abruptly short as it was, he’d deliberately buried himself in enough work and studies that people and relationships never would fit unless he sacrificed something vital. Even when he’d tried to force himself to see Moira in another light, he’d sworn it was enough to masturbate any lingering sexual frustration away, that he would never have to be that vulnerable with another person, never let them see him in that state of abandon.

Yet, none of those thoughts gained any foothold in his mind as Charles pressed impossibly closer, his hips moving, his warm, sweat damp skin dragging across the insides of Erik’s thighs as he sped up, toes braced against the footboard as he pushed forward, working towards a goal as Erik held onto him, holding him steady lest they’d fall off the bed.

It was a split second, Charles breathing, heavy and panting, “Erik, _Erik_ , I’m – God –” and he suddenly dived down, locked his mouth on Erik’s as he keened, whole body tensing, joints locking. As Charles’ mind spread, the world narrowed down to a point, one single point that contained all the world’s energy – every atom, every quark of pleasure buzzing and straining and pulsing –  and Erik couldn’t breathe as it spiraled higher, got tighter too much, he was going to die from this –

He was not quite there, but suddenly the feeling of Charles’ trembling, white-hot, so-tight-and-loosening relief coursed through him, making the hairs on his arms stand, and there was nothing in the world that could stop the rushing feeling spreading throughout his entire body as he followed, tensing before shuddering apart under Charles’ weight as the air returned to his lungs, leaving him gulping for breath.

Charles burrowed his head in the crook of his neck and shoulder, one hand still tangled in his damp hair as they lay together, gasping for breath. The shadows on the walls were all still and silent, and they simply breathed, not daring to move just yet. Charles was heavy weight on top of him, warm and pliant as his chest expanded in time with his racing heart. Erik wasn’t sure what he was going to do, something creeping up on him as his breath slowed.

Then, slowly, before he could articulate anything, he felt a hand slide down his arm, palm down, weaving its sticky fingers with his. Time seemed to come to a complete stop, and despite what had just taken place, what had just boiled over, Erik could only find he was calm. So he folded his fingers too, and simply held on. No anger or disappointment, no contempt or wildness buzzed under his skin as he absently carded his other hand through Charles’ sweaty hair, breathing his air. It was the quietest and calmest he’d felt in years, no matter the Arctic silence.

When the slight chill of the bedroom came back, making their tight and itchy skin harder to ignore, Charles pushed himself up onto his elbows. He hovered above Erik for a moment, something unsure playing on his features. His hair was in complete disarray and his lips swollen and he was so brilliantly beautiful, something inside of Erik broke.

He closed his eyes for a second, feeling only Charles’ breath on his mouth. He opened them again when Charles tugged ever so lightly at his hair.

“Erik.” he whispered, the words breaking the fragile silence. “You do know that I don’t want anyone else, right? Not here, not back home. I only want you.”

Something burned behind Erik’s eyes, but he swallowed it down. He took his chance, framed Charles’ face in his hands.  “Yes. I do.”

At that, Charles just smiled wistfully at him. “Thank you,” he whispered, and he brushed his ever so lightly along Erik's hairline.

But later, when they’d cleaned up and dressed in thermal sets, when he lay in Charles’ bed with Charles pressed up against him, so close he could feel his strong heart beating through all the layers of clothes, Erik knew it really should have been the other way around.

* * *

The clouds were hanging low, shrinking the world as small flakes floated from the sky and into the water. Erik stared at them where he sat on the hood of the still warm snowmobile, his binoculars up to look out over the open water. It was almost twenty minutes since they’d first arrived, and still there was no sign of the Norseman. Charles sat next to him, so close they were touching from shoulder to thigh.

“She’s usually on time, isn’t she?” he said. When he talked, a cloud rose from his lips, dissolving quickly in the dry air.

Erik shrugged. “It depends,” he said, handing the binoculars over to Charles, to make him be quiet. “Be careful there. The metal on the eyepiece can take a chunk out of your nose.”

Shaking his head, Charles looked down in his lap. “And we can’t have that, now, can we?”

Erik gave him a sharp look, which only caused Charles to smile. “No, we can’t.”

From the moment he’d woken up to the shrill ring of Charles’ alarm clock, a brittle and icy feeling had settled into Erik’s gut. Over breakfast, when he made the bed and Charles folded his station down to fit into one of his equipment boxes, it had gnawed out a home deep down. It had all been done efficiently, with nothing spared. He had caught Charles looking at him, of course. It had been his reality for so long, even if it was only just realized. Yet he hadn’t been able to say anything. Every word felt like another blow to the scaffolding that was the only thing keeping him upright, so the only thing he’d done, was that he’d given in to hold on to Charles for a few minutes after doing the dishes. Just holding him, feeling the thump of his heart against his own ribs, the airy coffee scent of his hair and Charles’ tentative presence in his mind.

Now, Charles was handing the binoculars back, when Erik caught something in the corner of his eye. On the top of the hill, Moira and Cassidy had showed up, marking Marie as officially late. Erik let out a small sigh, and Charles used the time before they reached the wharf to make the space between them slightly bigger.

“Good morning,” Moira said when she and a waving Sean came into earshot.

“Morning,” Charles replied, but Erik only raised his hand in acknowledgement.

“She’s late again?” Moira asked. The morning was still chilly, but nowhere near the usual temperatures, so she had pulled the scarf down from over her nose. Without the fabric, her voice carried out over the bay with a strength Erik hadn’t heard in awhile.

“Seems like it,” Charles answered. “Where’s Hank? He said he’d come see me off, too.”

Now close enough she didn’t have to shout, Moira shook her head. “He was, but he caught something. Has a fever and sniffled all through the night. Drove me nuts.”

“I just hope I get home before it hits,” Cassidy whined, hiding a yawn behind one of his mittens.

“It’s not even sure you’ll get sick at all,” Moira cut in.

Cassidy shook his head, curls bouncing. “I was in the same room as him! Of course I’ll get sick!”

“Stop it, Sean,” Moira said, but her voice didn’t hold her usual curtness, Erik noticed. “Don’t be such a pessimist.”

“It’s not pessimistic if it’s true,” Cassidy claimed, to which Moira snorted and Charles let out a small laugh.

He probably would have said something else too, but then, Erik felt the familiar rushing in his blood. Prying the binoculars from Charles’ fingers, he looked out over the water. And at the edge of the horizon, right below the sun, the pinprick of the plane was steadily growing bigger as it draw closer too fast.

Charles must have felt him stiffen, because a moment later he too fixed his eyes due west.

“It’s here?” he asked, voice low.

Erik nodded tightly, and then the plane’s engines was already roaring so loudly, they drowned out anything else. In the warmer air, the acidic scent of fuel burned even worse in their noses and eyes, and Erik pulled his scarf up and closed his eyes until the vibration of the plane thumping down in the landstrip reverbrated through up through his body. When he felt the engines shut off, he peeled an eye open and hopped off the hood and into the driver’s seat. Once he had made sure Charles was on as well, he drove the last yards, arriving just in time to see the ramp in the back open to reveal a Marie with her hands laden with crates already.

Erik killed the engine a moment after Moira. Marie peered at them from the gap between her hat and scarf, looking at Cassidy before her eyes flitted back to Charles.  

“So ?am I right when I take it you two are coming back to the place where normal people live today?” she said, voice twanging with her south state drawl. “To the sun and the warmth and the people?”

“Yup,” Cassidy answered.

“Then you lot better start packing in. I can only stay for so long today,” she said, motioning at the ramp.

From behind him, Moira sounded worried. “Why’s that?”

Marie shrugged. “They said a storm is coming in. That’s why I’m late, by the way. They wouldn’t let me leave.”

“So how long can you stay?” Erik asked.

“Twenty minutes, tops. They said it would hit further south in about four hours, but things move so fast up here, flat as it is. So if you can help me unload everything, it’d be a blessing.”

“Of course, Marie,” Moira nodded, her eyes drifting to Erik.

He tossed a quick glance in Charles’ direction. One which Charles returned with a short nod. And really, anything else was just selfish. Hopefully, giving Marie extra time, would give them extra time as well.  What followed next was a rushing and slightly confusing shuttle service of equipment going into the plane, while crates of varying sizes got stacked up in piles a few yards from the landing strip. The work only made Erik see Charles in quick passing, but it also kept his thoughts from straying back to the previous night – or anything relating to Charles at all.

However, the work also went a lot faster than expected, and when all the crates were stacked, Erik sat down on the hood of the snowmobile until Charles exited the plane again. He’d pulled off his knitted hat and his cheeks were rather red under all the freckles the sun had coaxed out. In some ways, it felt almost like a deja-vu, only that he’d travelled to the future rather than back in time.

After giving a quick hug to Moira, Charles made his way over to Erik. He walked with a caution to his step which Erik had never seen before, and in that moment, he knew just how hard this was going to be. He slid off the hood to be on steady ground as Charles then stopped in front him, hat in his hands.

He was still wearing the seal mittens.

“So, this is it, then,” Charles’ voice was surprisingly steady as he looked Erik head-on, his eyes strong like headlights.

Erik swallowed, nausea laced around his molars and feeling like a caught deer. “Guess so,” he said hoarsely.

The words came out just as stiff as he’d feared, and yet, he couldn’t press out anything else. It’d be as impossible and painful as siphoning out your entire blood volume with a juice straw. Meeting Charles’ gaze also got too much, so he let his eyes drop the snow-covered ground. There was a beat of silence, one that almost broke the moment, before Charles must have sensed the block in Erik’s throat, because then he said, mentally and soft as a whisper,

_I – it has been lovely here, Erik. It hasn’t been easy, but I will miss you. You’ve given me so much, even if you do not believe it. I just – I just hope I’ve given something back._

There was nothing Erik could say against it. He swallowed, something pulling on the inside as he draw Charles against him, felt his body against his own. If Moira or Marie or anyone read something into it, Erik thought, then let them. Let the world see that he cared for Charles–  brilliant, kind, persistent and pushy Charles –  with a fierceness he hadn’t know he was able to anymore.

Let the world know that Erik – that he –

He could do nothing else but hold even tighter, burrowing his head against Charles’ neck. Under the red fabric of the overall, Charles chest trembled in reply. They clutched at each other for a long moment, before Erik eased back, feeling every bit of the parting.

“You have,” he muttered against Charles’ ear as he then pulled back completely.

Charles’ eyes shone with the light reflecting of the snow; red and wet. “So it was worth it?” he asked, voice steady.

For a moment, Erik hesitated. Then he thought that Charles had already seen the truth in his actions, and so, he nodded. “Yes. It was,” he said, a slight tremble in his voice.

At that, Charles nodded as well. “Good,” he said, words imperceptibly wobbly as his fingers gripped Erik’s elbow. “I know you don’t like to talk much,”  he then said, smiling wryly, “but know you can always write to me.”

Erik frowned, “Charles–” but after the brush against his mind, telling him Charles was in there, he suddenly knew the address as if he’d known it his whole life.

He must have stared at him in shock, because Charles smiled a rather shaky smile before his hand fell from Erik’s elbow. “If you ever get lonely, you know where to reach me,” he then said, more cocky, and so, breaking the moment. Erik got painfully aware that they did have an audience, and so he stepped back and out of Charles’ personal space.

“Are y’all done?” Marie then asked, hands on her hips and a slight furrow between her brows. “Because hate to break it to you, but we gotta go. And that fast.”

“Yes, I guess.”

Charles caught his eyes one last time – in his mind, a burst of affection and warmth re-awakening the bruise behind Erik’s lungs – before he turned and stepped into the plane after Sean and Marie. The ramp went up, and after a moment Erik could see him in the window, pale and drawn.

As the engines roared to life again, whipping his scarf into his mouth, Erik raised his hand in farewell; Charles, on the other side of the glass did the same.

Then the Norseman turned around on the airstrip, pointing its nose south west. In the flux of the moment, Erik took a hold on the metal of the plane, and he held on as tightly as he dared without pulling it towards him as it sped down the airstrip and took off into the quiet air. He stared at it, holding on to the hulking metal until it was nothing more than a small pinprick at the horizon. Even then, when it was long out of sight, and some of the locals had started to trickle down from the community, he could tear his eyes from the grey line where sky and sea supposedly met, feeling tired and worn and bleeding from every pore in his skin.

“Erik?”

Snapping out of his reverie, Erik turned. Moira was looking at him, her brow creased.

“What?” he snapped, wondering briefly if she’d seen something on his face.

“I’m heading up to town now. You coming?”

Tossing one glance back at the horizon, feeling just the slightest hum from the plane engines, Erik emptied his lungs. A distraction would serve him well, and there was no such thing as too much meat even now.

Pulling his helmet from the steering handle, he pointed at her hand-pulled sled. “Put the crate on the sled and we’ll take the snowmobile.”

For a second, it looked like she was about to put up some sort of objection, but then she dragged her sled over. After propping it and the crate up behind the snowmobile, she soundlessly took Charles’ helmet when Erik held it out towards her.

“Want me to drive?” she asked, once the helmet was in place on her head, leaving nothing but her eyes visible.

Ever since he’d gotten it, Erik hadn’t let anyone but himself drive the thing. It was old, slightly whimsical model whose only good side was starting no matter the temperature, all thanks to Erik’s tinkering with the engine. But now, with this untethered, slightly and increasingly hollow feeling in his chest, he didn’t even hesitate before he stepped back, letting Moira climb onto the driver’s seat before he sat down, gripping the handle behind him. She revved the engine and drove them up the small hill and into the town. With the incoming warmth of spring, slightly more people than last time could be seen outside their houses, tending to one thing or another. Some were shoveling still lingering snow off of their steep roofs, or simply walking off some of the winter stillness’ from their legs.

Moira parked by Mrs. Ijiit’s shop. “I need to go get some cough syrup for Hank, so could you fetch my cut while I do it?” she said, taking off the helmet.

Climbing off the back of the snowmobile, Erik nodded. “Get some tran for me.”

“Will do,” she said and headed right across the wide path that could be considered a street.

Erik hung his helmet off the handle and went up the stairs and into the little shop.The bell above the door had barely rung before Mrs. Ijiit showed up from behind the back. Erik pulled off his hat in the relative warmth and somehow, he felt oddly conscious of how loud the spikes of his boots sounded against the wooden floor.

“So you come alone, Mister Erik,” she said, hands already busy with the latest meat, as if she knew he’d show up just this moment. “Miss Moira is busy elsewhere?”

“Yes. I’ll take her cut with me.” Erik said. “And whatever you’ve got for me too.”

“Of course.” She turned his back to him, looking over some of her more exclusive meat, thawing on the counter behind her. “I have seal and some whale skin, if you would like it,” she said, after a while.

It was one of the delicatessen of the north, which she usually never treated anyone but natives to. Erik nodded nonetheless. “Yes. Thank you.”

“You’ll get some caribou as well, of course, and another shoulder for Miss Moira,” Mrs. Ijiit turned back around, the meat already wrapped in it’s usual plastic wrap.

Erik watched in silence as she, with practiced movements, wrapped both of the pieces in brown paper to keep them a bit insulated during the ride back. It was almost hypnotic, following her hands and fingers as they pulled, folded and pinched at the paper until it formed as she wanted. When she was done, she weighed both of the cuts and rang up the total. Erik reached into the pocket of his anorak, feeling out some of the last of this year’s money.

But as he handed her the wrinkled bills, she took a steady hold on his hand. Erik startled, and as always, his first instinct was to pull away from it, especially when her grip tightened just the slightest.  He met her eyes, quiet and deep as they were, and saw no malice. So he let out a breath and  let her hold his big hand in both of hers.

“The young man who was with you last time has left, hasn’t he?”

All plans and subconscious tries to shove it under the rug was unmade with just the blink of an eye, and Erik found he had to swallow once, hard, before he could answer.

“Yes. Just now.”

“Hmm.” She rubbed a gentle, mitten-clad thumb over his knuckles. “Are you going to be lonesome then?” she asked, her dark eyes peering up at him.

He shook his head. “I like being alone, Enoo. It’s no difference from before.”

“Oh no.” She shook her head, something sad on her features. “No, no. Don’t tell lies. It is written quite clearly on your face. Etched right here,” – she motioned between her eyebrows–  “and in your eyes.”

Erik looked down at the table top.

“You are in love with that young man, Erik.”

Her eyes glinted. And as Erik couldn’t look away, the hollow feeling inside of him only grew, until the void had turned into a black hole in his stomach, his chest throbbing as he shook his head. It felt at the same time impossible as inevitable to simply – let it all out to her. Enoo had treated Erik with nothing but respect since he landed on the island, and she only ever seemed to want to help people. Everything over all of the months, over the last few weeks, the last day, and still it was only now, in this little butcher’s shop with Enoo holding his hands that Erik managed to say what he had realized even before it was his reality.

And maybe, that was why he took a deep breath and said, “I am.”

“And I need no seeing eye to see how he adores you, Mister Erik,” she said, reaching for something under the counter. “He was more than besotted last time. And you were too.”

“He figured it out, but –  I don’t.” He stopped, began again. “I don’t wear my heart on my sleeve.”

“No. You most certainly do not,” Mrs. Ijiit said, her voice soft. “We protect what we cherish after all. But love does no harm, and you told him soon enough. In your own way.”

He clenched his fist on top of the counter. “It wasn’t enough,” he said under his breath, the words dissolving as soon as they touched the air. “It’s never enough.”

Mrs. Ijiit didn’t say anything for a moment; the fan buzzed above them. Her hands held his a little tighter as she then said, “Not much is.”

Erik shook his head, something burning behind his eyes, in a place he couldn’t quite reach. “He left. I knew he would, but – “

“Erik.”

He looked up from the countertop, head swimming. She squeezed his hand one last time and then slid the bigger package over the smooth wood. He didn’t even have to look inside to know what it was.

“You have only truly lost something if you give up on it. Sometimes it’s better to let it go, but it’s not the same as giving up.”

He fingered at one of the edges, the corner where some of the fabric peeked through. The caribou fur was just as smooth as on Erik’s threadbare one.

“He belongs here,” Enoo said, patting his hand once. “He will need this.”

Erik couldn’t do much else but nod, take the cuts and the anorak and stuff it in his backpack.

Afterwards, he stepped out of the butcher’s, feeling slightly light-headed. The sun has begun its journey down back behind the horizon, the shadows were long on the snow-covered ground. From the grocery shop, Moira soon came out, stomping off the melt from her boots on the steps. Her red muffler had fallen from her mouth, which was terse as she handed him a small paper bag.

“Here you go,” she said.

Erik took it with one hand, while the other opened his backpack and pulled out the piece of meat. “Good,” he told her as she took it from his hands.

She tilted her head slightly, the setting sun catching and glinting off of the red streaks in her hair as she brushed that stubborn strand that always made its way into her mouth. It was an objective truth that she was very beautiful. Not any more resilient or anything, but somehow more distant and set with no need to peel off anymore layers to see something more underneath. Not more than he already had and not they way he had with Charles.

Moira cleared her throat. “Are you going to be okay now?”

Normally, he would’ve bitten back at her. Now, he was simply too tired for something, so he just shook his head at her, smiling self-deprecatingly. “Who said I wouldn’t be?”

He heard her sigh – a deep thing from clean lungs, exasperated and maybe a little sad. “I didn’t, Lehnsherr. Just – take care out there.” She clapped him once on the shoulder. “And answer your goddamned phone when I call you.”

“Fine.” Erik, said, jumped back onto the snowmobile and revved the engine. Moira lifted her hand to her head, sending him off with her trademark two-fingered salute as drove down the slope.

He returned it with a raised hand; knowing she’d be there even when he turned his head.

It was a slow, almost resentful ride back to the station. The sun illuminated the snow like a cruel joke and if he could have, he’d driven with his eyes closed the whole time, simply to shut the pristine cleanliness of it all. When he killed the engine, he found himself sitting in the seat, unable to move. Just as the very first time he’d been here, with nothing but his own breaths to keep him company, there was a shift in his cognition. The last time he’d come back alone, it had been a sense of calm settling, a sense of redemption in the stillness. Now, the shift focused on nothing but the void. On how utterly empty everything was – the surroundings where nothing caught your eye, the soundscape which consisted of nothing but high and lows.

Erik had never craved sound. He’d never thought he ever would.

Stepping off the snowmobile, pushing it into the garage, he then slipped inside with an armful of wood. Inside, the relative warmth of the station heated his face. Moving on autopilot, he stacked the wood stove, went through his workout routine and made a small dinner – soup directly from a can, too drained to manage anything else. His head was spinning, words on repeat as he did the washing up and when the sun set, he folded into his chair to get back to work.

He was jotting down his numbers in the journal, when his eye for the first time strayed in through the half-open door to the small bedroom. In the narrow gap, the moonlight illuminated the empty wooden chair.

Erik turned his eyes down onto the numbers again, the small prediction he could compile for Kitty once she rung him up the next day. He kept on writing, pen rasping against the fibers in the old journals, until the fifth time his eyes strayed and got stuck somewhere he wasn’t even supposed to look. It was three steps to rise and close it for good, and yet –  

The silence in the station had never bothered him, and he wasn’t sure if it  even did now. Not the topmost layers of it, at least. Deeper down, in the marrow of the quiet bones, there was something missing; the ghost of their absence where pressing down like low hanging clouds. The absence of those slow breaths and rustling of clothes; the light clacking of petri dishes, sock-clad feet against the floorboards; the light, barely noticeable presence of something in the back of his mind.

With a determined swallow, Erik closed the journal book and pulled out the writing kit he’d used a whooping time of thrice. It had been in a flux of indulgence and still lingering hunger for expensive things he still wasn’t sure he could have that had made him buy it from a small shop in New York. He wasn’t good at writing, and especially not letters, but it had felt as if it was something he would do a lot in the future.

In one sense, it had been true. Still, the thick pen felt heavy in his hand as he settled in.

It took a while to get started, to remember how to form and compose a sentence that wasn’t simply made out of cold numbers and facts. Once the first paragraph was written down, however, there on the paper, something within him seemed to loosen. A once well-trained muscle found strength as the words poured out of him, until he found he had nothing more to say.

He wrote for what felt like hours – wrote until his kerosene lamp was low and his hand was cramping. He didn’t stop for anything until he’d put down the last period. When he finally rose, his back was stiffer than it had been in long time, and he stretched it out the best he could until he was sure the ink had dried before he carefully folded the letter into an envelope and lay it down on the kitchen table.

Outside the window, the world was dark and quiet, the snow still and white. From the eastern side of the station, the generator chugged to life in preparation for the night. Erik  shoved his hands in his pockets and blew out his cheeks. His breath sounded loud in the charcoal lights.

Tomorrow, he’d drive into town again, post the letter, and after that –

After that, all he could do was hope.

 


	9. Epilogue: 2° Celsius

_“Continue for the present to write to me by every opportunity: I may receive your letters on some occasions when I need them most to support my spirits.”_

* * *

 

The May plane arrived just at the heels of a storm, the day after the first real night with midnight sun. Summer was made to make up for all the time lost to winter’s darkness, so when the days became so long you couldn’t distinguish from what was night or not, Erik gave up on trying to be consistent with his day's’ rhythm. It was only when he was supposed to call Kitty, or present his data that it once again became relevant to keep his eye on. Otherwise, he followed whatever his body told him to do – eat only when hungry, sleep only when tired. Which was the reason he hadn’t even gone to sleep for the day before he’d ridden out to the village again, crate tied down at the back.

He was early, as he always had been, and he watched silently as the Norseman showed up on the horizon, its hulking weight drawing closer and closer, before it came to a roaring stop a hundred yards away. Erik drove his snowmobile closer, killing the engine just as Marie jumped out of the cockpit. With summer so near, the temperature had risen, pushing through all the way to the positive degrees, and loathing the cold as she did, Marie had taken every opportunity to dress lightly. She had tossed the overall and was only sporting a thick duffle and a scarf; the loose ends flowing gently in the light breeze.

Pushing the sunglasses out of his eyes, Erik went up to her. Marie sent him a lazy, one handed salute as she continued to stack her crates in their neat piles. On top of one of them, her agenda was open on an order list.

“Picking up old habits?” she said, making sure her stack was safe from toppling over. “Being early two pick-ups in a row now?”

“Only got myself nowadays. Only natural.” Erik replied, crossing his arms over his chest as he sent her a warning look. He still didn’t know how much she’d picked up the last time, but since Marie was Marie, it didn’t hurt to get things straight from the start.

But it was a look which she promptly ignored. “So he was holding you back,” she said, taking the recycle crate from his hands. “You were just too proud to admit it.”

Shaking his head, Erik bit his tongue against the things threatening to spill. “Not as much as he could’ve.”

“Certainly true.“ She plucked his new crate from the pile and propped it up on her hip. “I don’t know if that’s a blessing or a loss, though.”

She pursed her lips, and Erik huffed out a breath. “You got something else for me, other than that?” he asked her, pulling out the wrinkled bills from his pocket as he took the crate from her.

Marie grinned hugely at that, but she only said, “You know, you’ve been on the receiving end of a letter spree lately, Lehnsherr. It’s like you’re Harry Potter and it’s Sunday every time.”

“Have you got anything for me or not?” Erik snapped, eyeing her as he put the crate down on the edge of the snowmobile, latching it down tight.

“Alright, slow down! Indeed I do.” Her accent twanged as she reached inside her coat, fiddling with something in the breast pocket. “A whooping number of two letters, just for you,” Grinning, she handed him both of the envelopes with a flourish.

His heart in his throat, Erik looked at the addresses. One was, unsurprisingly, from the University, with its blue seal in the corner, the typewritten address and the heaviness that implicated an invitation card. The other letter, however, was also written on wealthy paper, heavy and the same quality of rough and smooth against his bare fingertips. But on this one, his name was handwritten out in small, blocky letters, correctly spelled, and in ink which shimmered lightly in blue when he held it up against the sun.

Holding his breath, he opened the second one as gently as he could – pulling the pages out and flattening out the creases as he read, eyes flying over the words.

 

> _Dear Erik,_
> 
> _I was surprised, but happy to receive your letter. You are very competent with your words, when you want to. I am glad you are well, considering everything, and I appreciated it immensely, darling_
> 
> _I have some news, as well. Upon arriving back home, I had a meeting with the faculty and my advisor regarding the data I had collected during my stay. While it is enough for me to finish my thesis, however, I am now convinced that the competence and knowledge within the field is miniscule at best, especially in relation to global warming. A long term study on the effects of CDOM in the Arctic archipelago is very much needed to widen that knowledge._
> 
> _A long term study spanning over three years – or even further, if I wish to prolong it. As I am able to support the finance, the faculty seemed to agree this was something to pursue – my advisor, Dr. Frost, especially so, if her thoughts were anything to go by. So I am now only waiting for them to get back to me. If everything goes according to plan, I should be on my way back to you, where I belong, by next June._
> 
> _Dr. Frost warned me before I came to live with you that once you have visited the Arctic, you will never want to leave. Polar sickness, they call it, that magnetic pull of the untouched nature. I did not believe her then – you remember I told you I was never good with the cold before – but I know that it is true._
> 
> _Now, nature is not my only call. You know that better than anyone._
> 
> _I miss you, Erik. Some days, so terribly, I can hardly stand it. All the sounds around here are grating on my skin, and I cannot believe how I managed to keep up these shields before. I miss how your warmth is constantly radiating from your skin. I miss how you kissed me as if I was the most precious thing you had ever seen, even if it was just one time (a time I replay in my head every night and it won’t ever lose its edge). I miss the northern lights (or more truthfully, I miss the way you watched me)._
> 
> _This will be a long year, but it is nothing compared to what waits on the end of it. You are resilient, and will hold on. I will do the same._
> 
> _As a last note, I will be at the conference at Columbia University in June. I cannot wait to see you again there (although, I know you will be out of your water in those halls. Somehow, I know that you always are when you are not surrounded by snow, wearing that anorak; where you are so at ease, you are simply the most beautiful thing I have ever seen). Hopefully, I have gotten the reply from the faculty then._
> 
> _Yours eternally,_
> 
> _Charles Xavier_
> 
> _Ps. I love you, too._

Somehow, something must have shown on his face – maybe as a smile, or just a open look that slipped through now that the scarf didn’t hide it, because when he looked up from the words, Marie gave him an odd look as she put the last crate on top of her pile.

“Good news, I take it?”

An unusually warm wind brushed through Erik’s hair as he tilted his head back. The sun was shining, not a cloud in the endless blueness of the sky. His eyes burned as he held them open, chest snared tight, but not in pain.

“Yes,” he said, breathing the air until he felt light enough to rise from the ground. “The best.”

  
~ The End ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all, folks!
> 
> Thank you to everyone for reading, and especially to all of you who have commented during these weeks! It means a lot, and I can confess that small changes (for the better) have been made thanks to you! 
> 
> Once again I want to thank Black_Betty ([black--betty](http://black--betty.tumblr.com/)) and [traumschwinge](http://http://archiveofourown.org/users/traumschwinge/works/) ([traumschwinge](http://traumschwinge.tumblr.com/)) for breathing life into this fic, and also to [avictoriangirl](http://avictoriangirl.tumblr.com/) ([avictoriangirl](http://http://archiveofourown.org/users/avictoriangirl/works/)) and [cheezybananaz](http://cheezybananaz.tumblr.com/) ([cheezybananaz](http://http://archiveofourown.org/users/cheezybananaz/works/)) and candream for all the lovely fanart. You guys are the bee's knees <3

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cover for "April"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4536957) by [avictoriangirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/avictoriangirl/pseuds/avictoriangirl)
  * [Fanarts: April (Northern Lights)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4597263) by [candream](https://archiveofourown.org/users/candream/pseuds/candream)




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